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Nishimura:
Now all panelists have made their position talks. I would like to start making questions to the panelists. In the last set of position talks from the World Environment field we heard Elachi-san talk about the relationship between research that aims at fundamental "knowledge," and the application of that knowledge. I think that, especially in the case of world environment, there are many cases where research work is started to find a solution for a known problem that we are already worried about. You start with a problem, then many researchers come together to seek a solution, and this process itself creates "knowledge." I think there is much research work of that type (the Mode 2) in the World Environment field. I understand that Elachi-san said that results of fundamental research may be applied through entrepreneurship, but that the objective of fundamental research and resulting application do not always have such a close relationship. In the case of work that is initiated to seek a solution to an existing problem, I think there is a slight difference between this and what Elachi-san was saying. Elachi-san, please make a comment on this.
Elachi:
If I understood your question, in many situations in order to apply something you need to understand some fundamental phenomena. Let me take a simple example - people in agriculture who are trying to understand the health of the crops and they want to be able to monitor the health of the crops. That would require some fundamental understanding of how does light interact with the vegetation. So you will be able to use that information to see if it is healthy or not healthy. So building up on your objective of what it is the problem your are trying to solve, you find that your need to do some fundamental physics of understanding the light interaction - with the chlorophyll in this case. And then you take it the next step once you understand that interaction is how do you measure that phenomena particularly on a global basisc so that takes you to the next step of doing it, let's say in this case, from a satellite. So now you have to develop the technology that will allow you to detect that signal from it. So now you need some better detectors or some larger optics, which require some additional technological developments. So even what seems to be a simple application problem - once you try to do it on a global basis and to be able to do continuous monitoring you find you need a number of steps of technology development on fundamental phenomena understanding.
Sometimes the problem is seen in reverse. People who are just developing instruments for doing, lets say, geologic mapping - when they fly over a field they find that there is some interesting signature that when they go and talk with the farmer they find that maybe that signature is related to the health of the agriculture, even though they have never thought about that before. So the key thing here is how do your bring together the scientists and the researchers and the people who need an application problem, or they have an application problem. Bring them together so that they can understand each other or what benefit they can give to each other. And that's why I think the whole idea of having symposia and conferences and bring people of different backgrounds to talk together and work together is very essential to improve, or to benefit from, the technology. I'm not sure if that's exactly what you were asking but I think that probably addresses it.
Nishimura:
Thank you very much. One thing in my question is: the case now is that we have a process where we start with a problem to be solved, in order to solve it some new "knowledge," and so in order to get the knowledge we have to return to fundamental research. Up until now the innovation model has been that researchers' work was centered on their curiosity, and then, spontaneously, other people found applications. I think there was an era in which such innovation model was dominant. On the contrary, problems in the world environment have brought up a new model, where in order to solve a real problem, you have to go back to fundamental research to get the necessary knowledge. I want to invite questions from the floor on this point.
In fact my main job is the study of innovation models, or research and development models. In that field the so-called linier model - starting from curiosity and proceeding through research, development, manufacturing and sales, is being generally rejected. Instead the increasingly dominant attitude is that in order to solve problem, researchers should go back to whatever fundamental research is needed. We had this idea firmly in mind when we planned the Takeda Award. Please comment.
Floor:
Supposing that the question has been asked to me, I will give my thoughts. It is important that there are sensitive, capable researchers aligned with needs, especially when you think about techno-entrepreneurship. I feel uncertain as to whether or not such an environment, that brings needs and researchers together, exists in Japan. For instance, in the case of mathematics - I am not mathematician, but anyway are there great developments from pure mathematics? Almost no developments come from applied mathematics. It may be different story in the case of astronomy, as its research is only possible at places that are far from human habitations. But I feel that it is important that you have an environment such that sensitive researchers are located near real people's life and can sense people's needs.
Nishimura:
Thank you very much. Fugono-san, do you have some comments?
Fugono:
In the case of world environment research we start from a position of having plenty of problems that we have to solve. Without doubt we have plenty of problems. Such problems are of various kinds, from one that has a very small target to one that is broad ranging. I think there is no single answer. Talking about the case of world environment, it is easy to define your target - there are plenty of problems that can give researchers motivation for their research within the current world environment field. However I feel that research that focuses on a direct target in order to contribute to some solution is not good research. There is no future expansion in those researches. I think it is important to choose, from the beginning, a direction that has the potential to bring about numerous developments. As I mentioned previously, good things really will follow later. During this process all research, even it is fundamental research, has to be done. It is wrong to say that because the research is application research, fundamental research should be excluded. However basic the research, if it is necessary then you have to do it. In order to do that you need a capability - not a personal capability, but a social capability that one could call "social magnanimity." To enable this you need money, human resources, a mature society - all that society can offer is involved. World environment problem needs such big scale thought, I think. The countries of the people gathered here, including Japan, have such power and magnanimity, and it is important that we proceed with awareness of this.
Nishimura:
Thank you very much. Okamoto san, do you have comment?
Okamoto:
I would like to talk about subject, which may deviate a little from the problems of the world environment. A long time ago, I developed a radar to measure the thickness of sea ice in the Antarctic Ocean. There was a specific need at the time - the icebreaker "Shirase" was grid-locked. So the thickness of ice - sea ice - in the Antarctic sea needed to be measured. Radar is needed to do that. The biggest burden was to get data on radio wave attenuation. There was no data so we had to start from such fundamental research. Now, one problem I really want to manage to find solution to is the landmine detection problem. In order to remove landmines, we have to know penetration depth of microwave into the sand. It depends on amount of water in the sand layer. There is not enough data about various frequencies. In the case of space-borne radar, there is not enough data on basic surface scattering, especially for the next generation of 35GHz radar planned for the Global Precipitation Measurement satellite. Fundamental data is always needed to develop real systems and use them in applications. I some cases I find I have to go back to fundamental research. So I think progress of technology is not linear - from fundamental research to application - but involves feedback and so proceeds in a zigzag fashion.
Nishimura:
Thank you very much. I would like to change the subject a little and talk about the traffic signal problem that Nakamura-san raised. In my presentation, I said that in a free market without regulation, even if a difference in water level is created, before long that difference disappears and a situation arises where no profit can be obtained. On the contrary, if there is regulation, someone who can make a profit today can continue to make a profit. It is one of the points that Nakamura-san brought up in the morning.
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