Huang Kuan-Ju, a JSPS Fellow (DC2), and Professor Uchida have received the Outstanding Presentation Award from the Japanese Psychological Association.

Their presentation, delivered in September 2024 at the 88th Congress of the Japanese Psychological Association, was titled ‘Do People Really Cause Inconvenience to Others? Cultural Differences in Overestimating the Impact of Support-Seeking on Relationships.’

An interview with Professor Yukiko Uchida of Kyoto University on “Schools, Communities, Workplaces: Changing Japan through ‘Situational Well-Being'” was published in Nikkei BizGate, an online platform providing business insights and expert commentary.

Amid a growing emphasis on well-being, health, and happiness, efforts to connect employees’ mental and physical health and sense of happiness to increased productivity are being introduced not only by companies but also in educational settings. Professor Uchida offered comments on these developments and discussed how Japan should advance well-being in the future.

For the full interview, please click here.

Professor Yoshinori Hiroi chaired the ESRI Policy Forum ‘Future Prospects Using System Dynamics x AI’ organized by the Economic and Social Research Institute at the Cabinet Office (November 8th, 2024).

The forum began with a report by Hiroshi Nomura (Special Researcher, Economic and Social Research Institute, Cabinet Office), presenting an overview and simulation results from the development of a system dynamics and AI model to predict the long-term future outlook of Japanese society.

The presentation was followed by reports and comments by a panel of experts on future perspectives and global issues (e.g., population, environment and international economy) consisting of Hiroshi Takahashi (Professor, Faculty of Commerce, Senshu University), Mikiko Kainuma (Research Advisor, Institute for Global Environmental Strategies), and Yu Korekawa (Director, International Relations Department, National Institute of Population and Social Security Research). Afterwards, the audience was invited to engage in lively discussion with the experts.

Professor Hiroi chaired the forum from the perspective of his research into AI-based simulations of future societies and gave his opinion on the significance and challenges of the presented research, its future development, and how it should be utilized.

A video of this forum will be posted on the website of the Economic and Social Research Institute, Cabinet Office, Government of Japan.

The construction of the Hagi Arch Tunnel (Hagi no Mani Mani), a community project supervised by Specific Assistant Professor Sayuri Hayakawa, was featured on Yahoo! News. The article reports on the maintenance of abandoned bamboo forests and bamboo cutting, which is increasingly becoming a social problem in Nishiyama, Kyoto.

A graduate student supervised by Professor Yukiko Uchida (in collaboration with Dr. Masataka Nakayama) has received the Outstanding Conference Presentation Award at the Japanese Association of Industrial/Organizational Psychology).

Presenters: Yasushi Watanabe, Masataka Nakayama, Kosuke Takemura, Yukiko Uchida
Presentation Title: Does Feedback from Generative AI Enhance Work Engagement? – An RCT on Strength-Based and Weakness-Improvement Feedback