The Humanities and Engineering Cultural Research Group—Origins and Outlook

Abstract

With the cooperation of IIS and alumni of the University of Tokyo EMP program, the “Culture X Engineering” research group began meeting in 2019. The group’s discussions provided IIS with good opportunities to think about the relationship between culture and engineering, and as the group became more active, the “Humanities and Engineering Cultural Research Group” was created in April 2020. This special edition begins with an article that identifies three points related to the characteristics and future prospects of the group’s activities: 1) Cross-disciplinary developments focused on “culture” (“creating a space”); 2) Encouraging professionals to participate (“the space’s characteristics”); and 3) Normalizing the fusion of humanities and science, and developments in individual projects (“developing the space”).