The Book Cover of "Unfolding Policy Management and Social Innovation" | Tomoki Kamo, Dean of the Faculty of Policy Management
December 19, 2022
I have been fortunate to have had opportunities to publish various books as an author or editor. Each time, I am reminded that a book is finally published only after going through various processes, starting with the writing of the manuscript, and through the collaboration of many people.
In the case of "Unfolding Policy Management and Social Innovation," there are the faculty members (the editorial committee) who conceived of publishing this book series. Then there are the authors of each individual paper and the editors for each volume (in the case of this series, two editors per volume for a total of ten). The authors and editors collaborate. Each volume also has a publisher's editor, and for each volume, the volume editors and the publisher's editor collaborate to bring their assigned volume to completion. Furthermore, as this book series is an initiative of the faculty and the campus, university staff are in charge of widely disseminating its results. The series' website, "Unfolding Policy Management and Social Innovation," is run thanks to the dedicated efforts of a certain staff member.
Thus, publishing a single "book" requires a long time and a great deal of collaboration in the process. Among the many steps on the "path" to a book's publication, one particularly enjoyable part is the process of considering the book's cover. The cover of a book embodies its "spirit."
The book series "Unfolding Policy Management and Social Innovation" consists of five volumes. Each volume—namely, "The Fluid World Order and Global Governance," "Language, Culture, and Communication," "Methods and Practices of Social Innovation," "Public Policy and the Changing Legal System," and "Methodological Developments in Policy Management" —represents a field that we currently recognize as shaping the discipline of Policy Management.
One could also say that each of these fields represents a policy question that faculty members at the faculty and campus recognize as a societal challenge that must be addressed. Therefore, the five-volume structure of this book series may become outdated in ten years, or perhaps even five. In five or ten years, the questions will likely change. Of course, some questions will remain the same. In any case, the study of Policy Management must be equipped with the mindset of constantly adapting to changes in society and its problems. Comparing "Unfolding Policy Management and Social Innovation" with "The Forefront of Policy Management," published twenty years ago, may reveal the passage of time and the evolution of policy questions.
These five volumes each represent independent academic fields that constitute the study of Policy Management. However, the five volumes have something in common. This is expressed on the covers of the five volumes of this series: the "human being." After the publisher and I created draft cover designs for each volume, we had the editors review them. It sounds rather inept, but initially, we had not anticipated that there would be a common element across the covers of each volume. But in the end, the "human being" was there.
On reflection, this may be self-evident. This "human being" has always been woven into the language used to describe the academic disciplines of the campus, including Policy Management and Environment and Information Studies. There is a campus pamphlet that was published just before the campus opened.
Hiroshi Kato, the first Dean of the Faculty of Policy Management, and Hideo Aiso, the first Dean of the Faculty of Environment and Information Studies, each contributed a short essay titled "To All Prospective Students of Keio University SFC." Dean Kato explained "policy" as follows: "When we hear the word policy, we immediately think of national policy, but the policy we refer to here is the choices and decisions humans make to take some form of action." Dean Aiso described the Faculty of Environment and Information Studies in this way: "We aim to cultivate individuals who will play a central role in the future information society from a broad perspective by learning about the relationships between humans, the environment surrounding them, and the information that greatly influences them, and by developing the ability to discover and solve problems on their own."
The work of publishing the book series "Unfolding Policy Management and Social Innovation" is an effort to reaffirm the founding philosophy of the faculty and the campus, and I felt this was also true in the selection of the book covers. On November 20 and 21, 2022, the ORF was held at the Shonan Fujisawa Campus (SFC) . On the morning of the 20th, we held a session titled "SFC30: Unfolding Policy Management and Social Innovation." Many current students, business professionals, and high school students thinking of studying at SFC attended the session. I was delighted by the large number of attendees. At the same time, I saw the familiar faces of classmates and younger students (in other words, alumni). It was a great pleasure to meet again in the Omega Building, where we once studied together, and to share a discussion on "What is Policy Management?" It was truly enjoyable.