Takahide Kato

This session presents a case study on co-creating future medical care by collecting and integrating public opinions into an ongoing research project. Our museum, Miraikan, has developed structured methods to collect and share public opinions with researchers. Here, drawing on both the practical knowledge and the theoretical framework of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI), we constructed a three-step framework to elicit, share, and reflect public perspectives in an ongoing research project focused on ultra-early disease prediction and intervention studies. With this ongoing project, we first present a plausible future scenario and gather participants’ diverse perspectives through a dialogue program, workshops, and an opinion-gathering exhibition. Throughout this process, we keep three points in mind: individuality, acceptability, and flexibility. Second, the collected opinions are shared with the research project, which will reflect on its approach accordingly. Third, the outcomes will be communicated back to the public through various formats such as events, blogs, and, in the future, new technology. As a result, we collected over 4,000 public responses. They reflected participants’ honest thoughts and values (individuality), elicited through interactions with Miraikan’s Science Communicators in the dialogue program and workshops (flexibility). The participants expressed a wide range of interests in the research, and some noted, “I appreciated the opportunity to share my views” (acceptability). These responses were subsequently communicated to the research project members, who stated in the workshop, “Hearing public perspectives provides valuable insights into my research,” and, “I want to conduct further investigation as informed by public input.” These results suggest that our integrated framework not only engages the public from the early stages of ongoing research, but also helps the research project align scientific objectives with societal values and expectations. This study offers a touchstone to bridge a gap between theory and practice and contribute to inclusive research governance.