Vol. 3

Newsletter from GPSS-GLI

GLOBAL LEADERSHIP INITIATIVE

The Graduate Program in Sustainabi l i ty Science-

Global Leadership Init iative (GPSS -GLI)

Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, The University of Tokyo

GPSS-GLI & Hakuhodo 1

UTSIP in Kashiwa 1

GPSS-GLI Activities 2

Stakeholder Collaboration 3

Faculty Column 3

Students Activities

4

Table of Contents

GPSS-GLI and HAKUHODO Inc. have been working together since 2014 to generate an industry-graduate school collaboration for promoting demonstra-tion and implementation of sustainabil-ity science. HAKUHODO’s mid- to long-term vision is very much a declaration of transformation, committed to moving beyond conventional advertising ap-proaches in pursuit of new opportuni-ties outside today’s business. HAKUHODO is exploring to set the direc-tion of future creation through an ex-perimental collaboration between aca-demia and industry that brings together science and art.

Recently, the two institutions agreed to officially acknowledge this inter-institution collaboration, and a ceremo-ny was held on June 1, 2015 to cele-brate the initiation of this partnership

where Mr. Kentaro Ichiki, Creative Direc-tor of HAKUHODO Inc., and Editor in Chief of “WHERE ART and SCIENCE FALL IN LOVE” and Professor Takashi Mino, Coor-dinator of GPSS-GLI, exchanged the agree-ment documents. Dr. Toshinori Tanaka, Project Assistant Professor of GPSS-GLI as well as Professor Masafumi Nagao from UNU, former Project Professor of GPSS-GLI, also took part in the ceremony.

Based on the agreement, GPSS-GLI and HAKUHODO will work together to pursue “Sustainability Science for a New Age” through a variety of collaborative activi-ties taking place inside and outside “WHERE ART and SCIENCE FALL in LOVE” Lab and GPSS-GLI; the common desire is to promote stakeholder cooperation and exchange for building a sustainable socie-ty. These joint activities and initiatives combine the resources and experiences

for science and art, including work-shops and lectures on the topic of “University-Industry Collaboration Module” as well as internships.

Izumi Ikeda, Project specialist of GPSS-GLI

GPSS-GLI and HAKUHODO MOU University-Industry Collaboration on “Sustainability vs.

Creativity”

July 2015

The University of Tokyo Summer Internship

Program (UTSIP) in Kashiwa

A ceremony to celebrate the initiation of this partnership where Mr. Kentaro Ichiki, Creative Director of HAKUHODO Inc., and Professor Takashi Mino, Coordinator of GPSS-GLI, exchanged the agreement docu-ments. June 1, 2015.

The Graduate School of Frontier Sciences (GFSF), The University of Tokyo organizes Summer Internship Program called UTSIP Kashiwa and invites undergraduate stu-dents from overseas univer-sities to study in Kashiwa for seven weeks. All selected participants are assigned to a laboratory of their interest and conduct research under the guidance of faculty members. Participants are also given the opportunity to attend lectures from re-searchers at GSFS as well as to experience Japanese cul-ture through weekend

events and field trips. Under this program, Ms. Ten Anastasiya stayed in GPSS-GLI from June 8 to July 17. She is

the first student from Tajikistan in GPSS-GLI and has a strong background in social science especially related to human rights and knowledge sharing. She is trying to map GPSS-GLI’s

academic activity through intensive interviews to facul-ties and students (around total of 25-30 interviews). It would be of interest to see how her map differs before and after the exposure to GPSS-GLI diverse environ-ment. We do hope her stay in GPSS-GLI nurtured the holis-tic view on sustainability is-sues and that her research input supports the evaluation of the program. Makiko Sekiyama, Project Assistant Professor of GPSS-GLI

Anastasiya Ten had a research discussion meeting with Prof. Hirotaka Matsuda, Project Associate Professor of GPSS-GLI.

chitect as main decision maker, is a cru-cial evolution of design to achieve a higher level of sustainability. The land-scape urbanist works as an applied “landscape ecologist” considering sensi-tivities of ecology that are lost with tra-ditional urbanization. In addition to the

lecture, students had a roundtable discus-sion with Professor Waldheim to deepen their understanding on the link of sustain-ability science with Landscape Urbanism and Ecological Urbanism.

Giles Sioen, Doctoral student of GPSS-GLI

Professor Charles Waldheim gave a special lecture on landscape and ecolog-ical urbanism at GPSS-GLI. Professor Waldheim discussed Landscape Urban-ism as the return to the origin of land-scape architecture in the United States. Various projects across the world that contain fundamental principles of Eco-logical Urbanism were explained through their landscape urbanism char-acteristics. In these projects, rather than having the urban planners in charge, landscape architects are first defining which areas can or can’t be urbanized. This change, putting the landscape ar-

The 4th Annual Meeting of the Glob-al Research Council (GRC) 2015 was organized by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) jointly with the National Research Foundation (NRF) of South Africa on May 26th and

27th in Tokyo. GPSS-GLI students attended the poster session held under the title, “Roundtable on Building Edu-cation and Research Capacity in Africa: How to Support Young Researchers for Sustainable Development” during GRC. In total, 18 institutions joined this poster session, and 11 of them were Japanese universities. It was a good opportunity for us to learn research projects of other universities in Africa. We were also successful in presenting our curriculum as well as research projects of selected doctoral students. Out of the discussions during this ses-sion, received many comments from

the GRC participants. We hope to con-tinue strengthening our network with scholars from African universities and GRC members.

Shogo Kudo, Project researcher of GPSS-GLI

Students Activity Students Poster Session at Global Research Council

PAGE 2 NEWSLETTER FROM GPSS -GLI :GLOBAL LEADERSHIP INITIATIVE VOL. 3

Lecture Report “From Landscape Urbanism to Ecological Urbanism”

Students Poster Session at the Global Research Council. May 26 - 27, 2015.

Lecture at Kashiwanoha Campus Station Satellite, The University of Tokyo. May 25, 2015.

Faculty Activity: Trust and Integrity in the Global Economy

Conference on Equipping Leadership for Economic Transformation

Round table discussion. May 25, 2015.

ference workshops enabled groups of interested participants, to study in depth aspects and examples of eco-nomic or business innovation and relat-ed trust-building with those involved at first hand, exploring what works, what doesn’t work, and why and how collec-tive efforts could have a stronger im-pact. This helped build up a shared understanding of the methods for sus-tainable economic and business inno-vation and how to scale them up. The conference participating organizations explored ways of working together on a

common project to advance economic transformation for global sustainability.

Emmanuel Mutisya, Project Assistant Professor of GPSS-GLI

On June 20 – 28, 2015, Emmanuel Mutisya of GPSS-GLI participated in the Trust and Integrity in the Global Econ-omy conference on equipping leader-ship for economic transformation held in Caux, Switzerland. The conference brought together academia and industry leaders including Sunil Mathur, MD & CEO, SIEMENS LTD, India; Jane Royson, Anglo-Swiss Businesswoman, Switzer-land; and Wendy Addison, Founder of Speakout-Speakup to discuss possible ways of collaboration to promote sus-tainable business investments. The con-

My three-month internship with HAKUHODO Creative Company focused on com-bining research elements and methodologies, specialties of Uni-versity of Tokyo, with creative

forms of public outreach, specialty of HAKUHODO. The main output of the internship was the filming and produc-

tion of the HAKUHODO— The Universi-ty of Tokyo collaborative Nairobi River Story video. I was also able to contrib-ute to HAKUDOHO’s development of the World River Story and What’s Your River Story websites.

My time at HAKUHODO exposed me to

an entirely new type of working envi-ronment and new strategies of commu-nication. Observing HAKUHODO discuss methods of disseminating information made me realize that the final step of making research accessible to the pub-lic is often missing from the academic process. This has pushed me to read-dress the final outcome I would like to achieve from my research. I am brain-storming different mediums through which my research results can be more accessible. A balance needs to be found between the focus of researchers and the focus of creative companies for true effectiveness in tackling so-cial/environmental issues.

My internship allowed me to serve as a bridge between different stakeholder parties and gave me a glimpse into how creative and information dissemination

companies run. I saw that their objec-tives and methodologies are both simi-lar and different than those of research institutes and that collaboration be-tween different, and sometimes con-flicting, sectors can be formed and be beneficial.

Aimee Christina Mori, Master student of GPSS-GLI

Faculty Column

Universities and the Co-creation of Knowledge and

Solutions for Sustainability Challenges

Stakeholder Collaboration

HAKUHODO Internship: Nairobi River Story

therefore tackle long-term and complex societal agendas, investing much time and resources in knowledge production and innovation, that other market ac-tors cannot. Universities also have a special talent for amassing research funds from government sources. Mon-ey means power and ability to assem-ble networks.

Then there is you. As you know, uni-versities have a special role in educating the next generation of citizenry and societal leaders.

This said, the ability of genius individ-uals to drive innovation is diminishing. Innovation now occurs in networks, and increasingly through collaborations amongst government, industry, citizens and academia. In my research I exam-ine how universities can collaborate with society to create societal transfor-mations towards sustainability. I call this process co-creation for sustainabil-ity. Key characteristics of this trend are firstly, a shift from knowledge produc-

tion as a means to an end, to knowledge production as a means to transform society. Secondly, co-creative sustainability partnerships typically involve stakeholder participation at many stages of knowledge production. Thirdly, owing to high ambitions of transforming society, partnerships will typically involve many societal interven-tions such as, for example, trials of emerging technical and social innova-tion in living social systems.

Most of us look for solutions to sus-

tainability challenges in the so-called “outside world”—that strange and cra-zy place out there past the past campus boundaries. But have you ever consid-ered the potential of the university itself to trigger societal transformations for moving society towards sustainabil-ity? This can occur many in ways. First-ly, and most evidently, through re-search results. Think of the world tem-perature dataset and climate models that underpin climate science. All that came from universities. The academy is also a powerhouse for innovation, both technical and social. Societal contribu-tions increasingly consist of prototypes of new technical devices, materials or social configurations that can be com-mercialized and up-scaled. Think of Facebook, Google and semi-conductors. Secondly, when universities speak to society, people tend to listen. Contrary to industry, universities are non-profit and protected from pressures to pursue research agendas with short-term utili-ty and commercial prospects. They can

PAGE 3 NEWSLETTER FROM GPSS -GLI :GLOBAL LEADERSHIP INITIATIVE VOL. 3

Greg Trencher, an Assistant Professor in the Master's Program in Environmental Sci-ence & Policy, at Clark University, and a graduate of GPSS-GLI doctoral program in March 2014, has joined GPSS-GLI as Project Assistant Professor for two months (June 1 to August 4).

HAKUHODO Office. July 1, 2015

Final presentation on Hakuhodo Intern-ship. July 1, 2015.

Editorial Note

Graduate Program in Sustainability Science-

Global Leadership Initiative (GPSS-GLI),

Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, The

University of Tokyo, Japan

http://www.sustainability.k.u-tokyo.ac.jp/

Student Initiative Activities - Sustain Cafe

Sustainability in Africa

GPSS-GLI Progress Review Session Awards

Two young scholars from Africa were invited for a session on sustaina-bility in Africa in SUSTAIN.CAFE. They were Dr. Divine Fuh from the Univer-sity of Cape Town, South Africa and Dr. Orleans Mfune of University of Zambia, Zambia. The session was un-der a broad topic “Sustainability in Africa”. Divine discussed the sustaina-bility of everyday life in the context of South Africa and Cameroon, while Orleans examined current implemen-tation of the REDD+ in Africa by look-ing at the potential winners and los-ers.

Key point in Orleans’ presentation was that REDD+ is rather hurting the poor as it deprives them of their only asset (natural capital) to make a living. Issues of compensation, resource own-ership and governance are not clearly spelt out. According to Orleans, REDD+ is not the ultimate solution to Green-house Gas (GHG) emissions as purport-ed. He described it as “neo-colonialism in Africa”.

Divine discussed sustainability as an embedded trait in mankind by stating that “People are naturally sustainable in their lives even though they do un-sustainable things”. He pointed out that people naturally dream and, as a result, anticipate future uncertainty and continuity. The ability to sustain people’s capacity to anticipate uncer-tainty, precarity and urgency, accord-ing to Divine, is what sustainability

seeks to achieve. His lively talk triggered a number of questions such as “the capacity to survive is coping but how do people dream in their struggle to survive?” and “should survivability be equated to sus-tainability?” These among others were some of the concerns that generated in-teresting perspectives from participants.

Reported by Gideon Baffoe, Doctoral stu-dent of GPSS-GLI

Enhancing Environmental Load Mitigation Benefits from Clean Energy Vehicle Incentives

Governments have provided various types of incentives, both monetary and non-monetary, for purchase of clean en-ergy vehicles such as electric and hybrid vehicles, hoping to mitigate environmen-tal load in the transportation sector. Con-ventional transportation policymaking, however, tends to focus on tangible ben-efits and costs and overlooks social and environmental aspects, resulting in bias in decision making. My research is an attempt to quantitatively demonstrate incorporating underutilized traffic re-sources, such as street parking and HOV lanes, into the existing financial incentive policies for electric vehicles to enhance social and environmental benefits, using analysis of existing data and consumer preferences survey, taking British Colum-bia as an example.

Shun Suzuki, Master student of GPSS-GLI

Participants on Sustain Café. May 28th, 2015

Lists of GPSS-GLI Re-cent Events

1. Field Exercises

- GFE Oasis Unit in August

- GFE Bangkok Unit in August

- GFE Tohoku Unit in September

2. Open Campus (October 23-24)

3. Leading Forum (The University of Tokyo hosts this nation-wide event this year.) (October 24-25)

4. GPSS-GLI International Symposi-um (November 19-20, 2015)

The purpose of the SUSTAIN.CAFE is to provide an opportunity for casual & infor-mal discussion on sustainability issues. This means that emphasis is placed not on the academic accuracy of the discussion but on sharing the personal opinions & feelings we each have. The latest SUSTAIN.CAFE was held on May 28th, 2015.

GPSS-GLI Program provides the

training that enables future global leaders

to make a profound impact on

sustainability science and sustainable

development. Students can: (i) develop

the skills necessary for global leadership,

(ii) acquire a broad perspective and

problem solving capabilities, and (iii) learn

to apply the concept of "resilience" both

theoretically and practically.

Inclusive Wealth on Sado Island

My research investigates how Sado Is-land residents relate to nature within their physical and social context. This will begin by gaining a structured but holistic understanding of the island using the Inclusive Wealth Index (IWI), a framework designed to measure the long-term prospects of a given society by evaluating its environmental, eco-nomic, and human elements. So far used to for inter-national comparison, the IWI nevertheless holds potential to guide future sustainable development at the regional level. Thus, another component of my research is to adapt the IWI for regional operationalization such as by extending it to encompass also the social aspects of a society. Combined, I am hopeful that this project might facilitate sustainable development and empower communities rich in nonmonetary wealth.

Yuki Yoshida, Doctoral student of GPSS-GLI