Academic Roadmap
Summary
Future Vision Reviewing Working Group
Chairman, Yasuhiko Arakawa (The University of Tokyo)
For the future development of applied physics, the strengthening of research and development through collaboration among and integration of related fields and the creation of new scientific fields are important. To achieve these, it is necessary to clarify a future vision of applied physics and the related fields while considering the needs of the future society and to outline the direction of future research fields. The Japan Society of Applied Physics has been formulating a future vision academic road map of applied-physics-related fields. In this road map, the following three are targeted: (1) development of a measure to facilitate new communication flow from academia to industry and government, (2) presentation of beneficial points and future vision of the applied-physics-related fields, and (3) training of a wide range of researchers who will play active roles in academia and industry.
Applied physics researchers play their roles on the basis of their vision and philosophy, as well as their sense of originality. However, it is also important to integrate and review the visions of each researcher under the framework of temporal and vertical space axes to improve the social significance of applied physics research. The significance of the future vision academic road map is that it enables the sharing of the temporal axis vision among researchers and related personnel. This will help create new academic significance, develop new and integrated fields, and introduce academe-based innovation.
In October 2006, the Future Vision Reviewing Working Group (WG) was established within the Future Planning Committee of The Japan Society of Applied Physics. The WG discussed the future of applied physics research and clarified the roles that applied physics research should play in the future and its ideal position, through specific processes, i.e., the development of the future vision academic road map.
In the development of the future vision academic road map, the most controversial topic was how the various applied-physics-related fields should be organized to formulate a map; we decided to carry out this task on the basis of the classification using the bottom-up approach. Before the formulation of the road map, the basic policies summarized below were established.
- The scope of the current effort is the development of a vision map. By taking the temporal axis into consideration, the goal of the vision is targeted at 2040.
- The bottom-up approach is basically used to classify element technology clusters; however, discussion from the viewpoint of the top-down approach, such as social needs, is also expected in formulating each map.
- For each element technology cluster, one main map and an arbitrary number of submaps are developed and an explanatory text is added.
- In addition to the maps developed for each cluster, the development of an integrated vision map that combines several clusters and one that overviews overall clusters is also examined.
In concrete terms, the following 19 element technology clusters were established to formulate the vision map by accumulating the knowledge of specialists and researchers related to each cluster. The resultant outputs were the fruits of labors that have an impact on the future of applied physics research. In addition, from the viewpoint that applied physics will play an important role in solving environment- and energy-related problems, discussions on these issues were deepened as part of the integrated future vision. I sincerely hope that the future vision academic road map will contribute to the future development of the society itself and research activities of the society members and related researchers. We intend to publish the revised version two years from now.
Finally, I deeply appreciate the efforts of those who were in charge of developing the road map of each cluster, and I would like to express my gratitude to the related personnel of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and the secretariats of the society.
