Growing a Japanese Science City - Communication in Scientific Research (Hardcover)

The future of basic scientific research is foreshadowed in the developments at Tsukuba Science City. This planned scientific community is vital to the basic research effort in Japan: 45 per cent of Japan's public sector researchers work at Tsukuba and 48 per cent of the nation's reseach and development budget is spent there. Yet Tsukuba remains a controversial social scientific experiment. The author tells the story of Tsukuba Science City and draws conclusions about the possibilities of planning successful research in order to achieve economic growth. This text explores the motivations behind the construction of Tsukuba, looks at how plans changed during the process of implementation and examines the ways in which scientific research is conducted at Tsukuba today. A study of quantitative and qualitative data reveals the successes and failures of attempts to construct collaborative networks among scientific researchers.