R&D ProjectsDevelopment of an Intergenerationally Co-creative Community Model of Work-Life Integration

General Description of the Research Project

A major problem in modern society is the significant imbalance between hilly and mountainous areas with depopulation and aging, and metropolitan areas with concentrated population and exhaustion both mentally and physically. Although an increasing number of people want to move to rural areas, there are not enough jobs and life-support services in the local community have been weakening.

In this project, we will create a means of living in hilly and mountainous areas by combining self-sustaining and self-employed forestry which takes advantage of local forests, the most valuable resources, with a wide variety of other possible jobs. We will create a mechanism in which there are mutual aids in community and support for young people returning or migrating, to establish a means to live with guidance from the elderly. In order to support these activities, we will foster tacit knowledge in the community towards “social knowledge” and make it available to everyone through the use of ICT. At the same time, we will train “support designers” who can create new values in local areas.