2025 (Current Year) Faculty Courses Liberal arts and basic science courses Humanities and social science courses

Creating Innovation

Academic unit or major: Humanities and social science courses
Instructor(s): Takehiro Inohara / Shinya Nagasawa / Kaoru Endo / Ryuichi Ueda / Tomoaki Saito / Yusuke Irisawa / Hidenobu Hashikami / Tomohiro Nakada
Class Format: Lecture
Media-enhanced courses: -
Day of week/Period (Classrooms): 7-8 Wed (W9-324(W933))
Class: -
Course Code: LAH.A538
Number of credits: 100
Course offered: 2025
Offered quarter: 3Q
Syllabus updated: Aug 14, 2025
Language: Japanese

Syllabus

Course overview and goals

Seven lecturers from different academic societies will each give a class on the topic of "innovation."

The aim of this course is to enable students to transcend the boundaries between different academic fields and to gain a cross-disciplinary, bird's-eye view of "innovation."

Course description and aims

By taking this course, students will acquire the following abilities:
1) Be able to describe the diversity of "innovation."
2) Be able to describe the similarities and differences between "innovation" in various fields.
3) Be able to describe the similarities and differences between the "innovation" covered in the lectures and "innovation" in the students' own field of expertise.

Keywords

Mechanisms and concepts for creating innovation; commercialization and social implementation of innovation; elemental and fundamental technologies that support innovation

Competencies

Specialist skills
Intercultural skills
Communication skills
Critical thinking skills
Practical and/or problem-solving skills

Class flow

In principle, each class will consist of a lecture by the instructor. Group work and group discussions may also be conducted.
After each class, students are required to submit two types of assignments.

Course schedule/Objectives

	Course schedule	Objectives
Class 1	Guidance, Creating Innovation (Oukan-Rengo: Transdisciplinary Federation of Science and Technology)	Discuss the diversity of ways of thinking about innovation on the basis of the contents is the syllabus, the guidance, the lecture, and the textbooks.
Class 2	Social Informatics and Innovation for Solving Post-Human Social Issues (The Society of Socio-Informatics (SSI))	Describe the similarities and differences between "innovation" in the lecture and in your own field of expertise.
Class 3	Role of Robot Competition and Experiment Meeting in Research of Robots and Self-Driving Cars (The Robotics Society of Japan (RSJ))	Describe the similarities and differences between "innovation" in the lecture and in your own field of expertise.
Class 4	Automotive Innovation and Social Acceptance (Reliability Engineering Association of Japan (REAJ))	Describe the similarities and differences between "innovation" in the lecture and in your own field of expertise.
Class 5	Creating Customer Experience and Product Innovation in the Elaborate Fabrications at Kyoto “Shinzaburo Hanpu” (Association of Product Development and Management (APDMJ))	Describe the similarities and differences between "innovation" in the lecture and in your own field of expertise.
Class 6	Scheduling Innovations Aimed at Enabling Commuter Carpooling ｚ (Scheduling Society of Japan (SSJ))	Describe the similarities and differences between "innovation" in the lecture and in your own field of expertise.
Class 7	Innovation in Production Systems Based on Data Science (The Institute of Systems, Control and Information Engineers (ISCIE))	Describe the similarities and differences between "innovation" in the lecture and in your own field of expertise.

Study advice (preparation and review)

To enhance effective learning, students are encouraged to spend approximately 100 minutes preparing for class and another 100 minutes reviewing class content afterwards (including assignments) for each class.
They should do so by referring to textbooks and other course material.

Textbook(s)

"Creating innovation: mechanisms, social implementation, and technology" (Koyo-Shobo, 2024) (See the syllabus in Japanese for more information of the textbook.)

Reference books, course materials, etc.

Course materials will be provided via Science Tokyo LMS.

Evaluation methods and criteria

Assessment will be based on two types of assignments submitted after each class.
The assignments for each class are:
(1) a Summary Report briefly describiing what you learned in the class (consisting 50% of assesment in total) and
(2) a Report on the Theme describing the similarities and differences between the "innovation" discussed in the lecture and "innovation" in your own field of expertise, approximately 320 English words or 800 Japanese characters (consisting 50% of assesment in total).
The deadlines of submission are: the next day of the class for (1) and Monday of the week folloing the class for (2).

There are no make-up assignments for any absence from classes, regardless of the reason.
Read the course materials posted on Science Tokyo LMS to find out the content of the class you missed.

Related courses

LAH.S406 ： Essence of Humanities and Social Sciences6:Business System Design
LAH.S415 ： Essence of Humanities and Social Sciences15:Science and Technology for Society
LAH.S433 ： Essence of Humanities and Social Sciences37:History of Science
LAH.S443 ： Essence of Humanities and Social Sciences51:Studies on Future Society
LAH.S449 ： Essence of Humanities and Social Sciences58:History of Physical Sciences
LAH.S510 ： Essence of Humanities and Social Sciences45:Social Sciences with Evolutionary Simulation

Prerequisites

Prospective students should have interests in innovation.

Contact information (e-mail and phone) Notice : Please replace from ”[at]” to ”@”(half-width character).

Prof. Takehiro Inohara, inostaff[at]shs.ens.isct.ac.jp

When inquiring by emails, include the course title "Creating Innovation" in the subject, and your student ID and name in the body of the email.

Office hours

Make an appointment by email.