Makoto Shida

Through my experience, I have found similarities in research acceleration of young researchers and business acceleration of startup companies. The key factors to acceleration support are 1) to clarify and refine the vision & goals, 2) to raise the success rate, and 3) to shorten the processing time to the milestone. In order to achieve this, strategic/conceptual thinking and storytelling technique is crucial.

As University Research Administrator (URA) at the Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Biology (WPI-ASHBi), I plan and implement these specific support measures to create a systematic process of making success stories of the researchers we support. My supporting area covers a wide range, from establishing a new research environment upon arrival at ASHBi, to grant support, refining research vision and strategies, personnel recruitment, and regulation compliances etc. Through the support of individual researchers, our team is endeavoring to systemize into support programs, so that it will be beneficial to more researchers.

In addition, as a new research institute, ASHBi itself needs startup support for its success. Many challenges arise daily in setting up a sharing research environment at our open labs and in establishing new systems as an institute. We tackle these challenges by dual perspectives; zooming into the scene, and zooming out from bird’s eye view to find the obstacles, which needs to be solved.

Biography

Before joining WPI-ASHBi in April 2019, Makoto worked at Kyoto Research Park Corp (KRP) where he had a key role in establishing HVC KYOTO, the leading biotech startup pitch event in Japan, to coordinate the members of University, local government and startups and global companies to bring the event to a success. He also has extensive experience in corporate strategy, international and media relations, industry-academia liaisons as well as startup/business incubation since joining KRP in 2002.