Establish a creative environment for roadmapping in academy—From the perspective of <Emphasis Type="Italic">i</Emphasis>-system methodology

Roadmapping, originated from industry as a strategic planning tool, is attracting increasing applications in academy. Based on the recognition that roadmapping is a knowledge creation process, this paper analyzes what kind of support is needed or helpful for establishing a creative environment for roadmapping in academy and reviews various types of such support from the perspective of i-system methodology. As case studies of such support, this paper further introduces roadmapping pratices in Janpan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. This work was sponsored by JAIST 21^st COE Program: Technology Creation Based on Knowledge Science. Tieju MA is an assistant professor at the Graduate School of Knowledge Science, Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Japan, and a research scholar at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Austria. He received his B.S. in industrial engineering in 1998 from Dalian University of Technology, China. Then from the same university he received his M.S. in systems engineering in 2000. In October 2003, he received his PhD in knowledge science from Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. His research interests include agent-based modeling, technology dynamics, and knowledge management. Andrzej P. Wierzbicki specialized in automatic control and telecommunications, especially nonlinear dynamic systems, mathematical optimization and multiple criteria decision analysis and support; he works now on knowledge creation theories. He served (1991–1994) as the Chairman of the Commission of Applied Sciences of Republic of Poland, later (1996–2003) as the Director General of the Polish National Institute of Telecommunications; he also served in diverse roles in the management of academic research. He is a Research Professor at the Center for Strategic Development of Science and Technology, Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST) and in National Institute of Telecommunications, Warsaw, Poland. Yoshiteru NAKAMORI is a professor at the Graduate School of Knowledge Science, Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Nomi, Ishikawa, Japan. He received his B.S., M.S., and PhD degrees all in applied mathematics and physics from Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan, in 1974, 1976, and 1979 respectively. His current research interests include systems methodology, environmental studies and agent-based simulation. He worked in Department of Applied Mathematics at Konan University from 1981 to 1991. He visited International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis as a researcher from 1984 to 1985. He was presidential advisor at JAIST from 1999 to 2000. He currently is the Dean of Graduate School of Knowledge Science at JAIST from 2002.