I had the honor of participating in a general meeting of the AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science), the publisher of the prestigious Science magazine, in February 2014, in Illinois, USA. I was astonished at the scale of this science communication event as there were exhibitions from more than 50 countries. The “JAPAN” booth was set up by representatives from Hokkaido University, RIKEN, The Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST), and World Premier International Research Center (WPI) Initiative. Numerous Japanese corporations, such as Fuji Heavy Industries, were also present with their own individual exhibitions. This type of communication between researchers and the general public is quite common in the USA, where ideas can be exchanged directly so that market demand is reflected in a more realistic and constructive manner. Through this invaluable experience, I was able to learn the differences between the industry–academia–government collaboration in Japan and the USA.

 

 

Reported by Riku Takahashi, first-year master’s student/pilot program student (at time of report submission), Graduate School of Life Sciences