The Research Centre for Advanced Science and Technology (RCAST), attached to the University of Tokyo, is Japan’s foremost research organisation. It focuses primarily on the fields of science and technology.
This month the centre celebrates its 20th anniversary, and its founding principles include an interdisciplinary approach, an international perspective, mobility and openness. These principles have been adhered to and are still our key guidelines in conducting our research.
RCAST is like a mini-university. Its work is cross-cutting, with research in fields ranging from engineering to medicine and from intellectual property to political science. In addition, because it is a rather small “university”, it enables collaboration between different research areas. For instance, there is a research project about “memory and record”. A political scientist, whose field of expertise is oral history, works with a researcher whose field of expertise is computer science or “virtual reality” technology.
Another example is the work of associate professor Satoshi Fukushima, who is deaf-blind (and was featured as “Asian Hero” by Time magazine in 2003) and leads a project on barrier-free education. Researchers with disabilities will give their viewpoint as “the concerned persons themselves”, while psychologists deal with the mental questions and focus on society’s acceptance of people with disabilities. And technology, of course, plays a big role in developing and designing barrier-free devices. In other words, researchers from many disciplines join forces at RCAST to pursue the production of new knowledge.
The centre is also developing research capacity. It manages a doctorate programme based in the department of advanced interdisciplinary studies (AIS). Since its foundation in 1992, it has been providing mid-career professional people the opportunity to resume their studies in an academic environment.
Recently, AIS has taken a fresh look at its work and has come up with a new idea. It will attempt to attract researchers and engineers who work in business and industry to do a course for training advanced science and technology innovators. Because technology is becoming more and more advanced and developing rapidly, researchers tend to fall behind and sometimes reach a dead end. So AIS invites professionals to come back to academia, conduct interdisciplinary research and develop their leadership in managing research projects on their own.
So far, RCAST has been successful in keeping its name as an “advanced” institution. But, owing to university reform in Japan, competition between universities for funding and students will become tougher. This is because universities have to become more self-sufficient and have to define clearly what sets them apart.
Fortunately, compared to other universities or institutions, the University of Tokyo and RCAST (through its affiliation to the university) are quite strong, thanks to their reputations and the quality of research they conduct. Obviously this does not guarantee future resources. To remain competitive, the centre should draw upon its uniqueness as a research facility and be brave enough to try new things as it celebrates 20 years of existence.
Chiyoko Kanno is the communications director at the Research Centre for Advanced Science and Technology