This note is part of the literature map series of the Social Design Lab (ISVD-LAB-003). It clarifies ISVD's intellectual coordinates through comparison with prior and related research institutions in Japan.
What Is Happening
Multiple research institutions in Japan bear the terms "social vision" (shakai kōsō) or "social design" (shakai dezain) in their names. The Graduate School of Social Design (Shakai Kōsō Daigakuin Daigaku) launched its Social Design Studies program in 2024. Rikkyo University's Graduate School of 21st Century Social Design has carried the banner of "social design" since 2002. And ISVD (Institute for Social Vision & Design) was founded in 2025 with "social vision design" at the core of its mission.
Given the similarity in naming, it is necessary to clarify where ISVD's "social vision design" sits — what it shares with these institutions and where it diverges. This note systematically compares the intellectual foundations, methodologies, and audiences of all three, demonstrating that they stand in complementary rather than competitive relationship.
Background and Context
Graduate School of Social Design: Graduate School of Social Design Studies (est. 2024)
Operated by the School Corporation for Advanced Education, this is a professional graduate school and a sister institution to the Graduate School of Project Design (Jigyō Kōsō Daigakuin Daigaku). It opened its Social Design Studies program in April 2024.
The program's approach centers on articulating a "grand design for society" and connecting it to policy implementation through public affairs methods. Its intellectual foundation lies in political science, the history of ideas, and public philosophy. Under the leadership of Akinari Senzaki, its founding dean, the program is characterized by approaching social vision through the lens of intellectual history.
Its target audience consists of social entrepreneurs and policy makers, and its primary output is the "Social Vision Report" (a professional degree thesis). In essence, this institution has formalized the process of drafting a social vision and translating it into the language of policy and institutions as an educational program.
Rikkyo University: Graduate School of Social Design Studies and Institute for Social Design (2002–)
This is the pioneering presence in "social design" research in Japan. The Graduate School of 21st Century Social Design was established in 2002, the Japan Society for Social Design was founded in 2006, and the Institute for Social Design was opened in 2008. It is the only institution to have academically explored the concept of "social design" for over two decades.
Its research areas span community design studies, social organization theory, global risk governance, and more. Methodologically, it is characterized by practice-oriented research that emphasizes participant agency and endogenous development. Its consistent stance has been to bridge the practice of NPO/NGO management with academic theory, reconstructing field knowledge in scholarly language.
Rikkyo's "social design" focuses on the autonomous organization of civil society and the possibilities for social transformation that emerge from it. If the Graduate School of Social Design orients toward a "grand design drawn from above," Rikkyo places its center of gravity on "social transformation growing from below."
ISVD: Social Vision Design (2025–)
ISVD was established as a general incorporated association and is not a degree-granting educational institution. At the core of its work is a three-stage framework for addressing social issues: structural social analysis (identifying problems through data and prior research) → epistemological critique (asking why those problems remain invisible) → design practice (creating the foundation for visibility and civic action).
Its intellectual foundation lies at the intersection of six fields outlined in "The Intellectual Coordinates of Social Design" — agnotology, epistemology, social policy, participatory design, EBPM, and civil society theory. In particular, the perspectives of agnotology (the study of ignorance) and epistemic injustice, absent from the other two institutions, constitute ISVD's methodological distinctiveness.
Its outputs are not degree theses but articles, data, and research notes published openly. ISVD aims to be an information infrastructure — a fusion of media and research platform — that enables citizens to read and interpret social structures as matters of personal concern.
Reading the Structure
Comparative Table of the Three Institutions
| Axis | Graduate School of Social Design | Rikkyo: Graduate School of Social Design Studies | ISVD |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intellectual foundation | Political science, history of ideas, public philosophy | Community design studies, social organization theory, risk governance | Agnotology, epistemology, social policy, EBPM (6-field intersection) |
| Methodology | Grand design vision → Social Vision Report | Practice-oriented research emphasizing participant agency | "Reading the Structure" 3-section analytical framework |
| Target audience | Social entrepreneurs, policy makers | NPO/NGO practitioners, civil society researchers | Citizens at large (both beneficiaries and agents of information) |
| Outputs | Professional degree thesis (Social Vision Report) | Master's theses, academic papers, journal articles | Open-access articles, data, and research notes |
| Meaning of "vision" | Articulating a social ideal and implementing it through policy | Citizens autonomously reorganizing society | Deciphering invisible structures and building the cognitive foundation for civic action |
ISVD's Distinctive Position
Four distinguishing characteristics emerge from this comparison.
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The introduction of agnotology: Both the Graduate School of Social Design and Rikkyo proceed on the assumption that "the problem is, to some degree, visible." ISVD begins with the question of "why the problem is invisible" — the very mechanism that produces invisibility. The agnotological perspective systematized by Proctor & Schiebinger (2008) has been introduced into social issue analysis, a feature unique to ISVD among Japan's "social vision" and "social design" institutions.
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Open access: The Graduate School of Social Design delivers knowledge to enrolled graduate students who pay tuition; Rikkyo serves its enrolled students and researchers. ISVD publishes all content free of charge. One part of ISVD's raison d'être is to bring the knowledge behind degree-program walls to those on the outside.
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Data-driven approach: Technology-enabled data visualization and analysis — including automated retrieval of government statistics via the e-Stat API and the construction of statistical dashboards — are placed at the methodological core. Because ISVD does not aim primarily at academic publication, it pursues near-real-time comprehension of social structures.
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Translation for citizens: Academic knowledge is converted through a three-section framework — "What Is Happening → Background and Context → Reading the Structure" — into a form that enables reading social structures without specialized expertise. This constitutes a concrete intervention against what Fricker (2007) termed "hermeneutical injustice" — the absence of conceptual resources for understanding one's own experience.
Complementary Relationships
The three institutions are not competitors but complements.
The Graduate School of Social Design's "grand design → policy implementation" sits downstream of ISVD's "structural analysis → visualization." When ISVD illuminates invisible structures and builds a cognitive foundation for citizens, the quality of policy design improves. Conversely, the Graduate School's expertise in policy implementation provides ISVD's analysis with the perspective of "implementability."
Rikkyo's emphasis on "participant agency and endogenous development" resonates deeply with ISVD's aim of "building the foundation for citizens to engage with issues as their own." The practical knowledge of social design that Rikkyo has accumulated over more than two decades serves as a vital reference point when ISVD performs its "translation" for citizens.
Schematically, this complementary relationship can be mapped as follows:
- ISVD: Illuminates the invisibility of structures and builds a cognitive foundation for citizens (upstream)
- Rikkyo University: Accumulates practical knowledge for stakeholders to autonomously reorganize society (midstream)
- Graduate School of Social Design: Articulates a grand design and implements it as policy (downstream)
No single institution can cover the entire process of social transformation alone. Within the chain of "making the invisible visible" (ISVD) → "stakeholders taking ownership of what becomes visible" (Rikkyo) → "institutionalizing what has been taken on" (Graduate School of Social Design), each institution occupies its own station.
References
Agnotology: The Making and Unmaking of Ignorance — Proctor, R. N. & Schiebinger, L.. Stanford University Press
Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing — Fricker, M.. Oxford University Press
Strategic unknowns: towards a sociology of ignorance — McGoey, L.. Economy and Society, 41(1), 1-16
Graduate School of Social Design: About — School Corporation for Advanced Education. Graduate School of Social Design official website
Rikkyo University Graduate School of 21st Century Social Design: About — Rikkyo University. Rikkyo University official website