The Roles and Tasks of Implementation Science on Disaster Prevention and Reduction Knowledge and Technology: From Efficient Application to Collaborative Generation

Abstract

Implementation science should be developed and implemented in a scientific manner. Because implementation deals with how well scientific knowledge is implemented in an arena in which more diverse stakeholders rather than only limited number of scientists join, knowledge of implementation science by itself should be developed in a more dialogical and more discursive way. In other words, implementation science is a process to (re-)co-construct knowledge networks in which multiple locally and/or temporarily “viable solutions” co-exist and are mutually interlinked, rather than a process to identify universally “correct solutions” exclusively by scientists. Thus, we need to create a new-type of communication medium by which people can see a society, not as a world where a single “correct solution” is specified by privileged persons, such as a professional scientist, an influential politician, or an talented administrative government officer, for example, but as a debatable, conflicting, and dilemmatic world, and thus, a world where multiple “viable solutions” can coexist. Crossroad Game, a disaster prevention game developed by the author, and Rain Project, a participatory effort for meteorological information sharing that have been developed by Weathernews, Inc., are introduced as two actual case examples of implementation science for disaster risk management.