ELSI is Our Next Battlefield

Abstract

ELSI refers to “ethical, legal, and social issues/implications” of science and technology (S&T). The term has been gaining currency in Japan over the last 15 years in the context of its national S&T policy. In this essay, we argue that ELSI will become a pivotal concept characterizing the relationship between S&T and social sciences and humanities (SSH) in the country, due particularly to the first-ever amendment to the S&T Basic Law scheduled in April 2021. And because ELSI is recognized as an area of work that STS scholarship should play a major part in, how the local STS community is going to respond to the change this leads to will have a decisive impact on the way in which the relationship becomes characterized. The government’s persistent use of the term despite the criticism it has received reveals an assumption underpinning its S&T policy about the way in which the work of SSH contributes to S&T and helps to foster innovation. It is therefore important for the community to challenge such an assumption and reframe the role of SSH, if it believes in the societal value of its scholarship and the critical sensibilities that its research offers.

Keywords:

• ELSI
• Japan
• science and technology policy
• innovation
• STS

1 Introduction

“ELSI of the Past, ELSI of the Future” was the title of an online symposium that we organized in September 2020.¹ In its panel discussion, an attendee asked why we were still talking about “ELSI,” that is, the notion of “ethical, legal, and social issues/implications,” if the focus of STS has shifted to the more recent idea of responsible research and innovation (RRI) (see Stilgoe and Guston 2017). The question was a reflection of her personal observation at the joint meeting of the European Association for the Studies of Science and Technology (EASST) and the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) that had taken place about a month earlier. Although there have been efforts to introduce RRI to discussions of science and technology (S&T) governance in Japan, led primarily by local STS researchers (e.g. Fujigaki 2018; Shineha 2020; Yoshizawa 2013), ELSI has been gaining currency in the country over the last decade and a half, particularly in the context of its national S&T policy.

In this essay, we argue that ELSI will become a pivotal concept characterizing the relationship between S&T and social sciences and humanities (SSH) in the country, as a result of a major change in the national policy context – the first-ever amendment to the S&T Basic Law, which forms the legislative basis of national S&T policy, scheduled in April 2021. And because ELSI is increasingly recognized as an area of work that STS should play a major part in (Kobayashi 2020), how the local STS community is going to respond to the change will inevitably have a decisive impact on the way in which the relationship becomes characterized. ELSI is by no means a neutral term that merely refers to certain aspects of S&T, and it has received some criticism. The government’s persistent use of it despite this indicates an assumption underpinning its S&T policy about the way in which the work of SSH contributes to promotion of S&T and helps to foster innovation. The local STS community, if it believes in the societal importance of its scholarship and the critical sensibilities that its research offers, has to challenge such an assumption and to reframe the work of SSH in the governance of S&T.

To demonstrate this point, we first review the historical process through which ELSI became embedded in the framework of national S&T policy in Japan. Then we explain important implications of the amendment to the S&T Basic Law and discuss the potential significance of the local STS community’s response to them. With the understanding that the change in the policy framework serves as both an opportunity for the community to demonstrate its societal importance, and a challenge, in that its response will have a profound impact on the relationship between S&T and SSH, we finally turn to the early history of the community. While the community faced a similar situation in the early 2000s and grew rapidly by responding to a new policy framework emphasizing the need for “interactive communication” at that time, it has not been quite successful in challenging the underlying assumptions of the government. We, therefore, conclude by stressing that the community needs to do better this time.

2 ELSI in the Japanese S&T Policy Framework

Ethical, legal, and social issues/implications of S&T are sometimes understood as its “additional” dimensions. They are understood to be “additional” because they are not necessarily attended to in scientific research or technological development. The importance of examining such dimensions had already been recognized, particularly with respect to the emergence of biotechnologies in the 1970s and 1980s (e.g. Fox and Swazey 2008; Jonsen 1998), but the term “ELSI” only became commonly used to refer to them after the launch of a rather unconventional research program focusing solely on them in 1990, called the ELSI Research Program, as part of the US Human Genome Project (cf. Cook-Deegan 1994). Eric T. Juengst (1994, 1996), who managed the Program at the US National Institutes of Health, repeatedly described it as a social policy “experiment.” While it inspired similar endeavors in other parts of the world (see Chadwick and Zwart 2013), it met with criticism and invited a range of efforts to address its problems and overcome its limitations (e.g. Balmer et al. 2015; Calvert and Martin 2009; Fisher 2005; Rabinow and Bennett 2012; Rip 2009).

Japan took part in the Human Genome Project when it became an international research project in 1991, and its local research program also had some support for ELSI-related activities. Yet the focus of the support was primarily on communication with the public and dissemination of basic understandings of genetics and its potential applications (Itoh and Kato 2005; Sakaki 2019; see also Hayashi 2010). Several professional meetings on the topic of human genetics and society were organized (e.g. Fujiki and Macer 1992; Kato 1995, 1996; Kato and Takaku 1996), but their activities were short-lived. ELSI persisted in genomics research as an exercise of communicating its purposes and achievements to the public, but was not institutionalized in the country as a program for S&T governance in the way it was originally conceived in the United States, until at least 2003 when the Human Genome Project ended (Itoh and Kato 2005; Mizushima and Sakura 2012).

The first policy document that made explicit reference to ELSI in relation to S&T generally was the 2004 White Paper on S&T (MEXT 2004). The fact that a new research project on nanotechnology launched in the United States a year earlier had ELSI components seemed to have more influence on this government’s move than the ending of the Human Genome Project in the same year. The move also reflected the change in the country’s policy framework that had started at the turn of the millennium. At the World Conference on Science held in 1999, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the International Council of Science (ICSU) jointly adopted the Declaration on Science and the Use of Scientific Knowledge, also known as the Budapest Declaration. Its section entitled Science in Society and Science for Society, highlighting the benefits that S&T in the new millennium should bring to society, had a significant impact on S&T policy in Japan (Tsukahara 2020).

This emphasis on the societal benefits of S&T was strengthened further toward the mid-2000s, indicated, for example, by the recurrent use of the word “innovation” in a 2006 document called the 3rd S&T Basic Plan (Kobayashi 2011). The S&T Basic Plan is a policy document setting out the principles of national S&T policy, and it has been published every five years since 1996 (Kobayashi et al. 2019). This 3rd S&T Basic Plan, covering the period between 2006 and 2010, devoted a short section to ELSI, discussing it as potential problems that ought to be addressed and resolved in order for S&T to be “supported by society and the public” (Cabinet Office 2006, p. 60). It was also during this five-year period that small research groups focusing on ELSI were formed within large-scale national projects in biomedical research, firstly in neuroscience and then in regenerative medicine (Mizushima and Sakura 2012; Sakura and Mizushima 2010).

Thereafter, ELSI became framed in the country’s policy framework as “problems” that ought to be resolved if society is to benefit from advancements in S&T (see Mizushima and Sakura 2012). The section on ELSI was expanded in the 4th S&T Basic Plan, published in 2011. Its publication was deferred by a few months due to the Great East Japan Earthquake in March that year, and its final version, with some input from the local STS community (see Fujigaki and Tsukahara 2011; Kobayashi 2016), referred to the incident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, caused by the earthquake, as a case where ELSI needed to be taken seriously (Cabinet Office 2011). Also in this document, the government promised to support efforts to address ELSI as part of its research funding schemes, legitimizing its earlier trials in biomedical research and rolling them out to other areas of S&T research.

Reflecting the idea of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by the United Nations in 2015, the 5th S&T Basic Plan, published the following year, then called for interdisciplinary research to address ELSI and increase social acceptance of the latest developments in S&T, including regenerative medicine and artificial intelligence (Cabinet Office 2016). ELSI thus became firmly embedded in Japan’s policy framework over the period of a decade or so from the mid-2000s.

3 Major Change in the S&T Policy Framework

Japan’s S&T policy framework is undergoing a major change, and we expect this change to have a significant implication for the local STS community and its relationship to ELSI. In June 2020, the national diet passed an amendment to the S&T Basic Law for the first time since its enactment in 1995, and this amendment will come into effect in April 2021. The original S&T Basic Law was enacted as an early governmental response to the decline of the national economy after the bursting of an economic bubble in the early 1990s. Since then, the S&T Basic Law has been serving as the legislative basis for the country’s S&T policy (Kobayashi et al. 2019). It declares that the promotion of S&T is a responsibility of the government, and stipulates that the government, after consultation with the Council for Science and Technology Policy (CSTP), consisting of members of the Cabinet as well as academic and industrial intellectuals, publishes the S&T Basic Plans to fulfill this responsibility.

The amendment has two major items that together likely have a profound impact on how SSH relates to S&T. The first is the unequivocal addition of innovation to the scope of the law. To signify this, it is to be renamed as the Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) Basic Law. As already mentioned, the word “innovation,” just like ELSI, has been growing its presence in the country’s policy framework since its first appearance in the 3rd S&T Basic Plan. Reflecting this trend, the CSTP had in 2014 already been renamed as the Council for Science, Technology and Innovation (CSTI). Therefore, the addition of innovation can be seen as an adjustment to the consistent trend of the last 15 years.

The second change is an explicit inclusion of SSH in its scope. The original S&T Basic Law noted in parentheses that S&T did not include “humanities,” and “humanities” in this context has been understood to mean SSH. The amendment will strike out this note. The potential contribution of SSH to the government’s efforts to promote S&T has been acknowledged since as early as the beginning of the 2000s (e.g. Cabinet Office 2001), when it began to reflect the Budapest Declaration’s statement of Science in Society and Science for Society, but it has not been part of what the government is responsible for promoting until today. Its inclusion may appear to some a major departure for the country that once shocked the world when its Minister of Education demanded the downsizing of SSH departments at universities to offer “more practical” education and fulfill “the needs of society” (Dean 2015; see also Ruben 2015). Given the increased emphasis on innovation in the country’s policy framework as a means of bringing to society the benefits of, or return on the investment in, S&T, however, the reason for its inclusion seems to stem from the assumed potential to make it happen smoothly, primarily by addressing problems of ELSI.

This change in the policy framework can be seen in some sense as a call for help from the government in its efforts to promote STI. And the call comes with the promise of financial support not only to S&T but also to SSH. For STS – an interdisciplinary field within SSH, primarily concerned about the question of how S&T can be situated in and co-produced with society (Fujigaki 2020) – this policy shift featuring ELSI can be an opportunity to demonstrate its societal importance. The concern however is that the terms of its involvement have already been set by the government. As described above, SSH is expected to contribute to STI through its efforts to resolve problems of ELSI. For example, the CSTI has explained recently that “to smoothly promote practical use of R&D results in society,” its planned large-scale research initiative, the Moonshot Research and Development Program, will “establish a structure that enables researchers in various fields, including humanities and social sciences, to participate in R&D activities to respond to ethics, legal systems, and social issues” (2020, p. 3). The same vision is also evident in the ELSI Program, a new funding program to support “R&D of ELSI,” which a governmental agency, the Research Institute of Science and Technology for Society (RISTEX),² launched in early 2020 primarily targeting SSH researchers (RISTEX 2020).

On taking this opportunity, therefore, the local STS community, particularly if it is to continue its scholarly engagement with issues of S&T and to make S&T more responsive to the societal values, has to challenge the terms set by the government. Failing to do so means that STS, along with other fields in SSH, will be fixed in the role of auxiliary “contributor” to the government’s efforts to promote STI, rather than becoming a true “collaborator” who has the capacity to engage critically with and exert influence on what is being produced through its research (see Balmer et al. 2015; Calvert and Martin 2009; Hilgartner, Prainsack, and Benjamin Hurlbut 2017). Unfortunately, inaction is not an option in this context, because scholars in some other fields within SSH seem willing to take on the role of contributor as the government assumes they will. Such scholars can be under the considerable pressure to demonstrate that their work successfully addressed the problems of ELSI and to justify the governmental support they received (see Caulfield 2016). Regardless of their intention, therefore, this will render the meaning of inaction not as an expression of resistance but a sign of incapability.

4 Lessons to be Learned from the Past?

It should be noted that the Japanese STS community faced a similar challenge in the past, and actually made rapid growth by responding to it in the 2000s. The 1999 Budapest Declaration led to a change in the country’s policy framework at the beginning of the new millennium and, as a result, the idea of “interactive communication” took off (Cabinet Office 2001). Although Japan was slow in exploring participatory approaches to science communication (Fujigaki and Hirono 2008; Watanabe 2008), by the end of the 1990s efforts were being made locally to introduce approaches developed in Europe, such as consensus conferences (Kobayashi 2007). Those who initiated such efforts then played a key role in the foundation in October 2001 of the Japanese Society for Science and Technology Studies (JSSTS), which brought together scholars in philosophy, history, and sociology of science and technology to engage with pressing issues of S&T today (Ayabe 2020; Tsukahara 2020).

Their efforts intensified further in the early 2000s thanks to the change in the policy framework and particularly to the 2nd S&T Basic Plan, covering the period from 2001 to 2005, whose final year became later recognized as “the first year of Japanese science communication” (Kobayashi 2007, 2008). The most significant event of that year was the launch of three educational programs for science communication with funding from the government. The programs at Hokkaido University, the University of Tokyo, and Waseda University, along with a few other university-led initiatives such as the Center for the Study of Communication Design at Osaka University, formed major clusters of local STS researchers and served as the powerhouses in the field in the late 2000s (Tsukahara 2020). The hosting for the first time in 2010 of the 4S annual meeting outside North America and Europe can be seen as the capstone of the community’s rapid growth in this period (Fujigaki 2009).

Yet the rapid growth of the community did not necessarily mean that it exploited the opportunity fully. For example, the idea of “interactive communication” made science cafés particularly popular in the country in the early 2000s (Nakamura 2008, 2010). However, Nakamura (2010), who observed the trend closely, argued that science cafés were not as “interactive” as one might assume, and did not foster mutual learning between scientists and members of the public in practice, despite close involvement of local STS researchers. This argument resonates with the observations made by Fujigaki that “science communication in Japan [was] promoted under the auspices of the government which seeks to enhance the public understanding of science,” and that some such government-led programs even promoted “the deficit model,” that is, the belief that educating the public about S&T would lead to its social acceptance (2009, p. 517). Already in the late 2000s, local STS researchers had noticed the persistence of this deficit model both in the country’s policy framework and in the practices of science communication that it promoted (see also Shineha and Kato 2009: Yamaguchi 2010). Then about a decade later, Ishihara-Shineha’s (2017) analysis demonstrated that even after the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, the tone of national S&T policy in the country had not changed, and that it still followed the deficit model. Although the STS community grew rapidly by responding to the idea of “interactive communication,” and while attempts to facilitate communication featuring societal concerns rather than S&T per se have increased since 2011 (Yagi 2020; see also Fujigaki and Tsukahara 2011), its communal efforts, therefore, have not been particularly successful in challenging the terms set by the government and reframing the social significance of “interactive communication.”

The question for us now is whether the Japanese STS community can do better this time with ELSI. With the amendment of the S&T Basic Law, SSH is expected to contribute to STI through its efforts to address the problems of ELSI. As already explained, ELSI is a rather old idea that has met with some serious criticism, including not only its separation and subordination of the “additional” dimensions of S&T from and to their “core” aspects, but also its implications on the distribution of roles, responsibilities, and power among those involved in the process of their making (Hilgartner, Prainsack, and Hurlbut 2017). The strong presence of the term ELSI in the country’s policy framework reflects exactly the kind of assumption that the government makes about the role and responsibility of SSH in relation to STI. ELSI as is currently framed makes scholars of SSH responsible for addressing such “additional” dimensions, while at the same time accepting and even legitimizing scientists’ lack of care for them. The change happening to the country’s S&T policy, therefore, offers another battleground, after “interactive communication.” where the community needs to fight against the assumptions that the government makes in choosing to use the term ELSI.

5 The Challenge of Challenging the Assumption

As a major change is going to be introduced to Japan’s S&T policy framework through the amendment of its legislative basis, it is crucial to assess what the change means to the local STS community. In this essay, we have discussed its implications focusing on the term ELSI, which has been increasingly present and has become deeply embedded in the framework since the mid-2000s. Its usage increased as the idea that society should benefit from advancements in S&T became dominant in the country’s policy framework, paralleled by an increased emphasis on the word “innovation” in policy documents (Kobayashi 2011). The amendment will not only reinforce this association further, but also invite SSH to play the role of “contributor” in the process of innovation by addressing ELSI, which is framed as “additional” dimensions of S&T that need to be resolved. The local STS community needs to challenge this assumed allocation of role and responsibility in the process if it is to play the role of “collaborator” with the capacity to engage critically with and exert influence on what is being produced. We, therefore, argue that, while the question is still open-ended, how the community responds to the change in the coming years will make a significant difference to what the answer is going to be.

Looking back at its history, the community should not be too optimistic. It grew in the 2000s owing to the then policy emphasis on “interactive communication.” Yet it has not been very successful in making the government realize the importance of mutual learning or dialog between experts in S&T and the public. And the deficit model, which assumes an one-way flow of information from the former to the latter to be an effective approach to increasing social acceptance of S&T, is still embedded in the country’s policy framework (Ishihara-Shineha 2017). To challenge the terms set by the government, the community needs to do better this time, and demonstrate how its scholarship and critical sensibilities influence the process of STI and make it more socially responsive. There is ongoing discussion of how one might negotiate and build relationships with other stakeholders who have already secured their seats in the process, such as scientists and the government (e.g. Balmer et al. 2015; Calvert and Martin 2009), that it can learn from. This, we believe, is a battle that the community cannot lose, because, if it does, there is a good chance that STS researchers, along with other SSH scholars, will be fixed in the role of mere service providers to such “main” stakeholders in the process. As the locals might say, STS in Japan will then become “a defanged tiger.”

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the SECOM Science and Technology Foundation for its generous support over the last three years. We also thank Professor Yuko Fujigaki, who has been supporting our project as director of its ELSI Special Grant Program, and Dr. Robert Smith for their comments on the earlier version of this essay.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work is an outcome of Re-Constructing ELSI research project (Oct 2017 – Mar 2021) supported by the SECOM Science and Technology Foundation under its ELSI Special Grant Program.

Notes on contributors

Koichi Mikami

Koichi Mikami is an assistant professor in Faculty of Science and Technology at Keio University (Japan). His research interest lies in the relationship between trajectories of life science and biotechnology research and mechanisms of their governance at various scales. His previous work examined the science-policy interactions in the context of Japanese regenerative medicine research and the roles of patients and patient support organizations in shaping the nature of rare diseases research and orphan drug development. He is the principal investigator of Re-constructing ELSI research project, which engages critically with the idea of ELSI presented in Japanese science and technology policy and aims to provoke discussions on how it can be made to work as the foundation for participatory governance of science and technology.

Arisa Ema

Arisa Ema is an assistant professor at the University of Tokyo and visiting researcher at RIKEN Center for Advanced Intelligence Project in Japan. She is a member of the Ethics Committee of the Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence (JSAI), which released the JSAI Ethical Guidelines in 2017. She is also a board member of the Japan Deep Learning Association (JDLA) and chairing AI governance study group. She was also a member of Council for Social Principles of Human-centric AI, The Cabinet Office, which released “Social Principles of Human-Centric AI” in 2019. She obtained Ph.D. from the University of Tokyo and previously held a position as assistant professor at the Hakubi Center for Advanced Research, Kyoto University. Her primary interest is to investigate the benefits and risks of artificial intelligence by organizing an interdisciplinary research group.

Jusaku Minari

Jusaku Minari is an associate professor in the Uehiro Research Division for iPS Cell Ethics, Center for iPS Cell Research and Application (CiRA), at Kyoto University in Japan. His experiences include a postdoctoral researcher in the field of “genomics and society” at the Institute for Research in Humanities, Kyoto University, assistant professor in the Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University, and subsequently deputy director at Department of Research Infrastructure, Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED). His recent research focuses on ethical, legal, and policy issues in emerging biomedical research, particularly associated with genome medicine and regenerative medicine.

Go Yoshizawa

Go Yoshizawa is visiting researcher at Innovation System Research Center, Kwansei Gakuin University. He previously worked as a research fellow at Oslo Metropolitan University for the project “Positive Environment in Public Participation and Engagement for Responsible Research and Innovation” (PEPPER), funded by EU Horizon 2020 MSCA-IF-2017 (#796520). Designing, organizing, and facilitating dozens of transdisciplinary projects, meetings and workshops, he has committed himself to future-oriented strategic intelligence in science and technology policy including technology assessment, foresight, and responsible research and innovation. His recent interests include citizen science and knowledge governance for the reform of academia, and speculative design and art for wider engagement.

Notes

¹ The symposium was organized as part of Re-Constructing ELSI research project. We thank Prof. Atsuo Kishimoto at the Research Center on Ethical, Legal and Social Issues, Osaka University (Japan), who participated in the event as the guest speaker, and also all its attendees for the stimulating discussion.

² RISTEX is an agency that was also founded as a result of the change in the policy framework in the country at the turn of the millennium. For its history, see https://www.jst.go.jp/ristex/en/e_aboutus/history.html