On May 16, 2025, the sixth lecture of the 2025 Academic Frontier Lecture Series titled “Toward the World 30 Years from Now — The Changing Kyoyo, the Changeable Kyoyo” was held at Hall of Building 18. This session featured Professor Yuko Fujigaki, Vice President and Executive Director of the University of Tokyo and a specialist in Science, Technology and Society Studies, who delivered a lecture entitled “How to Acquire the Power to Overcome Barriers—Liberal Arts for Experts.”

Professor Fujigaki began her talk by referencing the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. Although Japan has long promoted itself as a “nation founded on science and technology” and has produced world-class research in fields such as nuclear energy, seismology, and tsunami studies, it still experienced a catastrophic accident. One of the reasons for this, she pointed out, was the lack of communication between academic and professional disciplines—that is, a weak capacity to integrate diverse forms of knowledge. Based on this awareness of the issue, she revisited the definition of liberal arts and introduced educational practices at the University of Tokyo. She specifically highlighted a course titled “Interdisciplinary Communication Studies” as an example of an attempt to foster liberal arts education.

The course is structured around a single theme for each session. The instructor provides a provocative text to raise key issues, which students then discuss in groups. The results of each group’s discussion are subsequently shared in a plenary format, and this process is repeated over four sessions. The chosen themes—such as research misconduct, surrogate motherhood, and global human resources—are deliberately complex, with no clear-cut answers. By engaging with these topics, students are expected to develop sound judgment and cultivate liberal arts skills essential for future professionals.

Through this interdisciplinary exchange, students are encouraged to question their own assumptions and deepen their thinking through dialogue with others. Such engagement fosters intellectual freedom and constitutes a core element of the liberal arts. Professor Fujigaki emphasized that “Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI)” can serve as a way to restructure the disciplinary boundaries that often act as barriers in academia and society.

Following the lecture, a lively discussion took place between the students and the speaker. As a foreign student conducting Area Studies in Japan, I have personally come to recognize the significance of research that transcends national and disciplinary boundaries. However, differences in academic methodologies, theoretical frameworks, and even logical thinking styles across countries pose real challenges. Against this backdrop, how we nurture liberal arts for experts and become academic bridges between cultures is a crucial question for those of us engaged in cross-cultural research.

Report by Xi Zihan (EAA Research Assistant)