As part of the Future Earth initiative in Japan, RISTEX set up the "Initiative for the Promotion of Future Earth Concept" in FY2014, and provided funding to transdisciplinary research projects until FY2019 (see "Initiatives" > "Future Earth" for more information). From FY2020, we have been conducting surveys which are aimed to provide evidences for JST as a funding agency to further promote transdisciplinary research in Japan.
In the initial survey in FY2020, transdisciplinary research projects funded in above Future Earth initiative and Belmont Forumʼs international collaborative research projects in which Japanese researchers participated were reviewed and analyzed. Also, the current status of and trends in research activities in Japan which are related to global issues were mapped, from which implications for future promotion of related research were extracted.
In FY2021, based on the findings of the FY2020 survey, we have expanded the survey to include several topics. We placed particular emphasis on summarizing discussions surrounding outcomes and impact of TD research based on its characteristics such as interdisciplinarity and co-creation with stakeholders, which are difficult to grasp with current research assessment frameworks. Then we looked into outputs of TD research RISTEX wants to visualize in order to further promote TD research, namely, the building and expanding of networks between researchers and stakeholders ('productive interactions'). With this background, in FY2022 we attempt to visualize outputs of several cases of TD research by using quantitative and/or qualitative tools.
- Belmont Forum
The Belmont Forum is a partnership of funding organizations, international science councils, and regional consortia committed to the advancement of transdisciplinary science related to global issues. For international collaborative search, it mobilizes researchers and funding of environmental change research and aims to accelerate its delivery to remove critical barriers to sustainability.
JSTʼs Belmont Forum website
