Research Project

The roles of Kansai Science City (aka Keihanna Science City) have always extended beyond academic studies or science and technology research; the City is now been tasked with combining “Japan’s traditional culture” and “leading-edge science and technologies” to develop and propose new “ability to utilize culture (in research and other activities),” which is befitting the city’s past position as an ancient capital and cultural hub.　This project will work to accomplish this task by making ideological inquiries around the question, “What is Japanese culture?” and examining ways our culture ought to be applied and utilized.
Research Objectives and Methods are as follows;
(1) Centering on the question, “What is Japanese culture?”, we will conduct an ideological inquiry into the Japanese culture, with the aim of finding explanations to what makes things “Japanese” and exploring ways for its better and wider use. This will be done through multi-angular analyses involving experts from diverse fields.
(2) The project will work to uncover and stimulate the society’s creativity to combine tradition with cutting-edge science. Rather than setting aside age-old culture and technique and premise our thinking only on the latest technology, we should learn how to adopt traditional skills and techniques or apply traditional design to the modern world.
(3) We will host a session at the IIAS Keihanna Philosophy Café “Goethe no Kai” under the theme that we would like to pose to the Science City residents, and discuss with the audience how we can enhance the “ability to utilize culture.”
(4) The project will adopt themes related to the “ability to utilize culture” that it can work on in collaboration with companies operating in Keihanna Science City and also incorporate activities that ensure a practical utilization of its outcomes.