Symboitic,Safe and Secure System Design | Keio University Global COE Program

The Global COE Program, the Center for Education and Research of Safe, Secure and Symbiotic System Design (mechanical, civil engineering, architectural and other fields of engineering), has been selected for FY2008.This program intends to solve all types of systems, from artificial systems to social systems, which have been constructed in post-war Japan, while also training future leaders to be able to solve such problems.

Conventional engineering has generally taken a reductionist approach. Although this has strengthened and enhanced each academic field, its education and research have considered how the overall system should be designed. This also overlaps with the post-war development of Japan. Although Japanese scientific technology has progressed and its GDP is now ranked second in the world, its citizens do not generally share a greater vision of setting the country's direction; indeed, today's generations are reported to feel less happy than those in the 1970s. This suggests that something is missing in the overall system design capability at all levels in Japan, and the same applies to the design of artificial systems. In modern times where not only artificial objects themselves but also the demands of the social and environmental surroundings have become larger, more varied and highly complex, it is crucial to design artificial systems which incorporate all values such as safety, symbiosis, convenience and usefulness. However, as it becomes more difficult to design large-scale complex systems properly, accidents and incidents arising from system failures and ethical problems are on the rise.

What is the solution? We believe it is crucial to construct an architectural foundation for "the study of system design", and to solve various problems related to system design by using this foundation, in parallel with basic research which takes a reductionist approach. The study of system design is a holistic methodology for system design which quantitatively analyzes and visualizes the relationship between various values mentioned above, including safety, symbiosis, convenience and usefulness, and the design purpose of each artificial object. Once a greater vision has been built, the methodology consistently constructs the architecture, designs and verifies the artificial and social systems.

Since the Department of System Design Engineering was set up in the Faculty of Science and Technology in 1996, Keio University has consistently led the development of education and research in system design. In 2000, the School of Integrated Design Engineering and the School of Science for Open and Environmental Systems were established in the Graduate School of Science and Technology. Then in 2003, "System Design: Paradigm Shift from Intelligence to Life" was selected as a 21st Century COE Program. This was followed by the launch of the Graduate School of System Design and Management in 2008.

This program will focus on symbiosis and safety, which are among the most important values of modern times, and create a new system design which comprehensively reflects these values. In other words, "you can see the forest and the trees". In addition to conventional component research, we will unify different components and values based on project management in cooperation with each other. By doing so, we will propose and realize new system concepts which meet modern demands. This is a unique and ambitious program which started in the milestone year, the 150th anniversary of the founding of Keio, with the great ambition of making system design change the education and research in Japan, or rather, to reform the strain that exists in the system called Japan. Our education and research accomplishments in the future will be worth watching.