- What is solutions research?
- The Institute will devise an ideal vision of society and industry several years to decade from now, then determines what research issues will have to be solved in order to realize that vision. Acting in close cooperation with society and industry, this research will mobilize a wide range of knowledge and research resources inside and outside the university in order to arrive at those solutions. Research of this new type is termed solutions research. It aims to achieve solutions by a multi-faceted, comprehensive effort that does not act in terms of science and technology alone, but that engages the issues from culture, civilization, and social system approaches, as well.
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- Why solutions research at this time?
- Tokyo Tech considers that there are three kinds of research that are proper to the university. One is discipline research, in which the researchers penetrate deeply into their topic of interest in accordance with the academic framework of the field concerned. This is research oriented to the exploration of scientific truth. The second kind is basic technology research, which is organized, comprehensive, long-term investigation of a specific research area, conducted by the attached research laboratories or other such organization in accordance with the defined purpose of that research. The third key pillar of research, which must be fostered for the future, is solutions research. The reason for this is that solution of the richly diverse and complex issues that 21st-century society will face cannot be readily accomplished just with the existing systems of academic knowledge, which are highly advanced, specialized, and segmented. Another reason is that the assignment of issues and the promotion of research must be conducted with adequate input from society and industry, and not just through the thinking of the researchers who create the technology. These different sides must join in engaging the tasks involved.
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- How does this differ from corporate solutions programs?
- Corporate solutions programs analyze or reevaluate the operations of their corporate clients to make certain that the corporation's hardware or software products (goods, materials, and so on) can be used by those clients to expand their business. This is done in the course of planning, manufacturing, and marketing the products. Corporate solutions programs also identify issues in upcoming business expansion and propose measures to resolve such issues or to make improvements. The primary motivation both of the parties proposing a solution and of the parties receiving the proposal is to seek profit. This is very different from the solutions research that reconfigures and reconstructs the university's intellectual resources in order to promote the evolution of university research and contribute to society.
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- How did the Integrated Research Institute get its name?
- The term "integrated" in the name of the Integrated Research Institute has three meanings. There is an integration of society and the university, which seeks to reduce the barriers between society and the university by research activity that is open to society and by collaboration with industry. There is an integration of knowledge, which makes comprehensive use of the diverse knowledge and research capabilities held by first-rate researchers inside and outside the university to facilitate the solution of issues while at the same time channeling that work into the creation of new fields, as well. Finally, there is an integration of advanced research and solutions research, which directs the results of advanced research in accordance with existing academic frameworks toward the solution of issues faced by society. The Integrated Research Institute was given that name in order to position these three forms of integration as keywords for solutions research.
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- What is the difference between research projects and research programs?
- Establishing the position of solutions research in the university will also require improvement of on-campus infrastructure and changes in researcher mentality. The Integrated Research Institute uses the term solutions research program to refer to the overall framework for plans and activities to that end. The research activities conducted within the framework of such a research program to solve solution issues are termed solutions research projects. Individual research projects are administered, managed, and evaluated within the framework of a research program. Research programs themselves are in the process of development, so that the experience acquired through the implementation of research projects is systematized and applied to the evolution of the research programs themselves. Programs and projects make each other evolve and become better through the mutual activities of their actual implementation, and in this sense they are engaged in co-evolution.
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- What will happen to the Integrated Research Institute when the government funding is concluded?
- Support from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology in the form of Subsidies by the Special Coordination Funds for Promoting Science and Technology under the Program for the Strategic Development of Research Centers is scheduled to last for five years, from fiscal 2005 to fiscal 2009. Tokyo Tech intends to utilize this development period to undertake a variety of experimental approaches in the Integrated Research Institute. The aim is to make advantageous use of that experience to facilitate the improvement of in-house structures and to reorganize the university's research function. The plan is to establish a structure capable of continuing solutions research even after the development period has ended, with the objective of realizing a highly flexible research organization under the leadership of the university president. The Integrated Research Institute is therefore seeking to acquire the outside research funding needed to assure its continuation.
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- What do Research Coordinators do?
- Research coordinators provide comprehensive support for the activities of researchers. Their responsibilities include assisting with the creation of proposals for acquisition of outside funding and with the preparation the various types of plans and reports involved, for the smooth executing of research projects, and for the acquisition of intellectual property rights. Their duties also include conducting negotiations with industry, other research institutions, government agencies, and so on, to promote industry-academia-government collaboration, and engaging in public relationship activities to publicize the activities of the IRI and accomplishments obtained from the research.
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