Nagoya University has applied for the Center of Innovation: Science and Technology based Radical Innovation and Entrepreneurship Program (COI STREAM) of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan (MEXT), proposing its vision of an "innovation design platform for diverse and individualized society: society and mobility enabling citizens to lead an active life," and has been selected as a research platform for this program.
As Japan has already become a super-aged society, we consider that preventing senior citizens’ mental and physical depression and increasing their activity will help ensure the sustainability of our society. In this regard, we will offer a means of safe mobility for senior citizens, creating and implementing a social technology that will revitalize their activities and help them to keep their physical and mental functions healthy. We will engage not only in developing technologies but also in establishing the study of "social innovation design" in cooperation with liberal arts researchers. Specifically, we will create (i) individualized mobility that provides vitality, (ii) a health promotion system that enables safety and security, and (iii) a social information system that enhances a feeling of connection. We will also implement a social design formed by a union of engineering, art, medicine, and neuroscience.
Combining an information network with mobility, we aim to realize a society in which people can live without disparity between ages, regions, or individuals, which will contribute to the formation of communities connected by strong ties. In this way, Nagoya University intends to constantly create radical innovations as one of Japan’s strongest platforms for collaborative research among industry, academia and government that will build a sustainable society, with a view to playing a role in leading Japanese industries.
Outline of Platform
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Period: from FY2013 to FY2021 (9 years)
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Promotion: Kenji Ezaki (Project Leader), Katsuaki Onogi (Research Leader), 190 members in total
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Projected Scale of Operation: 16 billion yen (in total)
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Facility for Research Platform: NU-Mobility Innovation Complex
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Location: Nagoya University Higashiyama Campus
