Professor Shichijo spoke at the 4th OECD Blue Sky Forum and attended the OECD MARIAD meeting as a Bureau member
Professor Naohiro Shichijo spoke in two sessions at the 4th OECD Blue Sky Forum 2026, "Charting New Frontiers in Science, Technology and Innovation," held at the OECD Conference Centre in Paris from 14 to 16 September 2026, and on 17 September attended the meeting of the OECD MARIAD expert group as a member of its Bureau. The Blue Sky Forum is the OECD's international conference on the future of data and indicators for science, technology and innovation (STI); this was its fourth edition.
Session E: "From signals to policy choices: data and indicators for emerging science and technology" (14 September)
The panel discussed what makes evidence on emerging science and technology genuinely useful for policy. Professor Shichijo raised the point that most of what we measure, such as publications, patents and grants, captures the production side of research and development. A country can appear to have a technology, yet that capability may depend on supply or dependencies it does not control, and today's evidence systems cannot yet tell policy makers whether that is the case.
Session R: "Designing data systems at R&D and innovation funding bodies to address operational and policy needs" (16 September)
The session examined how funding bodies can design data systems today that will answer the policy questions of tomorrow. In a talk titled "Designing for questions we had not yet been asked," Professor Shichijo used e-CSTI, the Cabinet Office's evidence system for Japan's public R&D investment, as a case: a system built to make public R&D investment visible has since been drawn into questions it was not designed for, such as deliberations on critical technologies. He closed with three propositions:
- Design the identifier layer as if the questions will change.
- Publish coverage, not only data.
- Keep the statistical system and the screening system distinct.
OECD MARIAD meeting as a Bureau member (17 September)
Following the forum, Professor Shichijo took part, as Vice-Chair of the Bureau, in the 2026 meeting of the OECD Expert Group on the Management and Analysis of Research and Innovation Administrative Data (MARIAD) on 17 September. He has been nominated to continue as Vice-Chair of the Bureau for 2027.
His exchanges with Paul X. McCarthy, a fellow panelist in Session E, also led to his upcoming panel at Black Belt Global Venture Studio Demo Day 2026 on 8 October.
https://shichijo-lab.org/news/2026-10-05-bbv-demo-day-panel-en.html