Chihiro Watanabe
Guest Research Scholar
Cooperation and Transformative Governance Research Group
Advancing Systems Analysis Program
Biography
Chihiro Watanabe joined the Institute in July 1994 as Senior Advisor to the Director on Technology. He is conducting empirical analyses on the interaction between technological innovation and industrial development, the motivation of technological innovation, and the substitution of technology for constrained production factors, e.g., energy and environmental constraints.Professor Watanabe graduated from Tokyo University with a bachelor's degree in engineering (urban planning) in 1968 and received his PhD (arts and sciences) in 1992, also from Tokyo University.
Professor Watanabe began his affiliation with the Japan Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) in 1968 and has spent most of his career there, mainly working in the fields of industrial policy, industrial technology policy, and energy and environmental policies. He is former Deputy Director-General of Technology Development at MITI. He was a member of the UN's GEF (Global Environmental Facility) STAP (Science & Technology Advisory Panel) and Chairman of IEA's Working Party on End-Use Technology.
Professor Watanabe is currently Professor at the Department of Industrial Management, Tokyo Seitoku University, as well as Visiting Professor at the National University of Singapore and Professor Emeritus of Tokyo Institute of Technology. Prof. Watanabe was Director of the Research Center for the Science of Institutional Management of Technology at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. He served the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) in the capacity of Senior Advisor to the Chairman on Technology. He is also associated with the United Nations University (UNU) as a visiting professor.
He has published widely in the fields of industrial technology, energy, and the environment and received the Minister of Education, Science & Technology Award, JSSPRM (Japan Society for Science Policy & Research Management) Award, and IAMOT (Intl. Association for Management of Technology) Research Award in 2008.
Last update: 28 MAR 2011
Publications
Watanabe, C., Akhtar, W., Tou, Y., & Neittaanmäki, P. (2022). A new perspective of innovation toward a non-contact society - Amazon's initiative in pioneering growing seamless switching. Technology in Society 69 e101953. 10.1016/j.techsoc.2022.101953.
Watanabe, C., Akhtar, W., Tou, Y., & Neittaanmäki, P. (2021). Amazon's New Supra-Omnichannel: Realizing Growing Seamless Switching for Apparel During COVID-19. Technology in Society 66 e101645. 10.1016/j.techsoc.2021.101645.
Watanabe, C., Akhtar, W., Tou, Y., & Neittaanmäki, P. (2021). Amazon's initiative transforming a non-contact society - Digital disruption leads the way to stakeholder capitalization. Technology in Society 65 e101596. 10.1016/j.techsoc.2021.101596.
Watanabe, C., Tou, Y., & Neittaanmäki, P. (2020). Institutional systems inducing R&D in Amazon- the role of an investor surplus toward stakeholder capitalization. Technology in Society 63 e101290. 10.1016/j.techsoc.2020.101290.
Naveed, N., Watanabe, C., & Neittaanmäki, P. (2020). Co-evolutionary coupling leads a way to a novel concept of R&D - Lessons from digitalized bioeconomy. Technology in Society 60 e101220. 10.1016/j.techsoc.2019.101220.