The fifth DIAS-GRENE-ei environmental information integration forum and workshop titled “The Sustainable and Dynamic Society Offered by Big Data” was held on October 25 (Sun), 2015. These days, initiatives to resolve the disaster, climate, energy, water, food, health, urban, ecosystem and other multi-disciplinary issues of modern society are required. One avenue to building a safe, secure and dynamic sustainable society is to form integrated scientific knowledge through the application of massive and extremely diverse data (big data) beyond the disciplines of science and technology, and share it with society to build consensus and assist cooperation. Over 200 participants gathered at the forum, where discussions were held by various specialists on the realization of a sustainable and dynamic society through the effective application of big data in the public arena, business and research.

Various opinions were exchanged on human resource cultivation and the social demand for governance and data from the perspective of policy on scientific and technological innovation. Opinions were also expressed from the perspective of disaster prevention/reduction, including that business developments hold significant potential for climate change adaption and that utilizing Japan’s experience to link data and information with social risk could lead to further potential for development.

Left) Yuko Harayama, Council for Science, Technology and Innovation, Cabinet Office, Japan Right) Panel Discussion