Basic Concept


    There can be two kinds of definition as "social technology". One is the technology for solving social problems, the other is the societal governance toward science technology.  We will focus on the latter viewpoint. Many arguments over this societal governance toward science technology have been made also in the past. However, since the share and accumulation of basic knowledge are lacked, the present condition is having repeated primitive argument for every subject or scene. It is the situation that we always have to argue the same kind of problems from scratch, because experts of each field discussed individually and did not share the framework mutually. In order to overcome such problems, the share and accumulation of theoretical knowledge about societal governance for science or technology is required. This research should be aimed to analyze and share the structure or framework of of case study.
    First, being exceeded the conventional assailant-victim model, co-governance by various interest groups in opened public sphere will be considered. Second, we will aim to construct theoretical structure combining with the researches which have been discussed individually (eg. technology policy (country level),  community theory, civic movement theory (local level), scientific philosophy and science theory) with each other. Third, we will take the approach to reconsider academic business from public problems through the process of structural extraction of case studies and making common framework.
    The main purpose of these approaches is to develop Japanese Science and Technology Studies. There are strong needs towards public problem solving and decision making under uncertainty, in which even scientists cannot provide the absolute answers. Governance of science and technology
means the establishment of sound knowledge base for supporting such decision making in public sphere, a common place in which members of society meet to discuss matters of mutual interests. Although such kind of problem solving in public sphere had been handled as a single, unique case in each field, this study aims to construct knowledge base in which we can share the “common frame” across the fields and cases to encourage comprehensive “stakeholder” debates and to enhance the productive dialogue between scientific community, citizens, policy-makers, and industrialists.
    The research plan includes research integration, mobilization of social studies and humanities as well as policy studies, and transdisciplinary collaboration in science studies. Research procedure includes theoretical analysis for classification of case studies as well as accumulation of important concepts for societal-oriented knowledge, for editing the handbook on "governance of science and technology" for the establishment of knowledge base.The expected results of this study can be utilized for re-examination on the research evaluation system considering knowledge production for public as well as for refining education system on science, technology and society

 

<References>


Research Contents


We will study the following procedures.


1
Organize the concept of public sphere or classification of case studies
2
Choose the cases 
3
Case studies
4
Extract the common concept
5
Compare them with the international case studies and  present them internationally
6
Construct the theory of  "social technology"
 
      The research results will be presented or published not only domestically but internationally through some workshops.  Moreover, we will edit the Handbook on governance of science and technology,  which will be useful to reconstruct the concept of social technology.

    Annual research schedule is as follows.

Jan. 2002-Dec. 2002 Making framework for the Handbook discussion of concept and case studies which will be adopted)
Jan. 2003-Dec. 2003 Start the case studies. Japanese case studies will be presented at domestic and international workshops.
Jan. 2004-Dec. 2004   Organize and analyze the case studies to publish the Handbook


Annual Planning


<January 2002- March 2002>


     We will take basic preparation for some cases expected to develop studies through 1
Arrange the concept of public space, 2Classification of case studies and 3Accumulate the related information.

1Arrange the concept of public space
     Based on the research which was funded by 1998-2001
 Allocation between Monbu Kagakusho and JSPS for Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C) "Social epistemic research on integrated analysis framework of the production,  distribution and consumption of knowledge based science and technology",  we will arrange the related social studies such as politics through these procedures.

2Classification of case studies

3Accumulate the related information
  There may be two way of information collection in this process.
    3-1
Collect data for editing the Handbook, 3-2Collet public data which will be adopted as case studies.

31Collect data for editing the Handbook
  Collect  and analyze STS Handbooks which are published in Japan or abroad.

32Collet public data which should be adopted as case studies

33Prepare for the making methodological lists of  case studies

34Prepare for research of scientific epistemic mapping by public


<April 2002-May 2003>


    We will discuss the frame of Handbook on "governance of science technology" (concepts and cases) through 1
Arrange the concept of public space, 2Classification of case studies, 3Accumulate the related information. These processes will be reflected on the contents of the Handbook.


1
Arrange the concept of public space

2Classification of case studies

3Accumulate the related information
     There are two way of information collection such as 31Collect data for editing the Handbook, 32Collet public data which will be adopted as case studies in this process.

31Collect data for editing the Handbook
 Collect  and analyze STS Handbooks which are published in Japan or abroad.

32Collet public data which will be adopted as case studies

    The framework of the Handbook (the concept and case studies which should be adopted)  will be argued based on the procedures of 1)-3).These works will be the basis of final output.


last updated:Jun.18,2002