News

2020年04月09日

+Osaka University establishes Ethical, Legal, Social Issues (ELSI) Research Center

SciREX Center

Osaka University has announced that it has established Research Center for Ethical, Legal, Social Issues (ELSI). Its goal is to become a "world-leading innovative university that will contribute to social transformation" by working together with society. The rapid development of emerging technologies such as life sciences and information technologies has the potential to make a significant contribution to humanity. However, taking ELSI into consideration is inevitable to fully take advantage of the benefits. The center promotes a wide range of research exchanges both inside and outside the university, activates interdisciplinary research, and presents new innovation models that contribute to the wellbeing of society by integrating the knowledge of sciences and technologies with social sciences and humanities.

The center will focus on:

• Studying the response to and governance of ELSI by integrating knowledge of the social sciences and humanities across academic disciplines.
  
  
• Becoming a hub to connect researchers with knowledge of ELSI in various academic fields to researchers engaged in the research and development of emerging science and technology.
  
  
• Connecting stakeholders such as business, government, and citizens by conducting workshops on ELSI of emerging science and technology.
  
  
• Providing educational courses to foster human resources that can contribute to the identification, assessment, and response to ELSI (ELSI human resources).

The Research Center for ELSI will closely work with STiPS, SciREX core center at Osaka and Kyoto universities, in promoting ELSI education.