The Venue

The 30th FISS Conference was held in Kyoto, Japan, on June 13th and 14th of 2024, in conjunction with the 20th Conference of East Asia Social Policy Network (EASP).  It was the second FISS conference to be held in Asia after the 2015 Hong Kong conference, away from its usual home in Sigtuna, Sweden. It was also the second time that the FISS conference was organized jointly with the EASP. The venue of the conference was the Kyoto International Conference Center, located in the outskirts of Kyoto, amidst a beautiful park, overlooking a lake. It was only 15 minutes from the historic and tourist centre of Kyoto, yet was surrounded by greenery and tranquillity, which was enjoyed by all those who attended the conference.

Participation

This year’s theme, “Best Practices of Social Policy in Turbulent Times”, was broad and attracted a record-breaking number of interests for presentations.  By the deadline for abstracts for presentation, the committee received 18 proposals for panel sessions and 273 abstracts for individual presentations.  Due to the time/space limitations, we had to conduct a strict selection process and asked the board members of both EASP and FISS to pitch in.  After a careful selection procedure, 6 panel proposals out of 18 were selected, and 158 individual proposals were selected for oral presentations out of 273.  The panel sessions we had to turn down were given a choice of presenting as group poster presentations.  103 individual papers which did not make it to the oral presentations were accepted as poster sessions.  All in all, we had 3 plenary sessions, 6 panel sessions, 44 oral sessions, 3 student sessions and poster sessions, which were held throughout the two days. Quite a number!

The statistics of the conference attendees are as follows.  All in all, 343 researchers (including graduate students) attended the conference.  The largest contingency came from Japan (26.1%), naturally since it is held in Japan, followed by South Korea (18.3%) and Hong Kong (15.6%). Altogether, researchers from 21 regions (Japan, South Korea, Hongkong, Taiwan, Mainland China, UK, Singapore, Australia, US, Sweden, Lithuania, Belgium, Italy, Canada, Germany, Turkey, Finland, Norway, Poland, South Africa, Indonesia), were present.   

  A special note should be written about the large turnout of graduate students.  35.4% of attendees were graduate students, and many presented orally and as poster presentations.  Thanks to the Student Session Committee, special sessions were also held for student presentations where they could receive comments from the veteran researchers. There was a variety of events and awards introduced at this year’s conference, including the Post-Graduate Presentation, the Post-Graduate Workshop, the EASP Early-Career Researcher Award, as well as Best Poster Prize. The good turnout was partly because of the discount pricing of the conference fee, which was funded by the EASP. 

Plenaries

Let us take a moment to reflect on the plenaries.  There were three plenaries planned for this conference. The first plenary, titled “How does Japan cope with the Aging Society?” featured Prof. Shogo Takegawa (Professor Emeritus, The University of Tokyo) as the keynote speaker, and he described the history of social policy for the elderly population, including pension, health care and employment.  Two panel speakers, Prof. Yasushi Sukenari (Associate Professor at the University of Tokyo) and Prof. Satoko Hotta (Professor, Keio University), described housing policy for the elderly and new initiatives in the activation and inclusion of people with dementia.

  The second plenary featured two speakers who both have excelled in international research.  Prof. Bea Cantillon (Emeritus with assignment, University of Antwerp, FISS Secretary General) enlightened the audience with the latest developments of social policy in the European Union. Prof. Emiko Ochiai (Professor Emeritus, Kyoto University & Professor, Kyoto Sangyo University) described the difficulties of applying the Western framework of analyzing social policy in the East Asian context and called for the East Asian framework.

The third plenary was hosted by the FISS and featured 3 FISS Board members.  Kenneth Nelson (Professor, University of Oxford) explored new challenges of sustainable social policy in “the decarbonized European welfare state”, while Rense Nieuwenhuis (Associate Professor, Stockholm University introduced the concept of “resilience” which has become more central in the EU policy debates.  Lastly, Agnieszka Chłoń-Domińczak (Associate Professor, SGH Warsaw School of Economics) discussed the debate on the power resources needed to ensure the further development of social policies in Europe. 

Impressions

  The 20th EASP and 30th FISS conference in Kyoto was an exemplary international exchange of academic achievements.  The sessions were lively and full of discussions.  The only complaint was that there were 8 to 10 parallel sessions going on at any given time, so one could only attend one and miss the other ones.  With this number of sessions, the conference could be 3 to 4 days long.  There were also lots of scholarly exchanges going on in the poster session area (maybe because refreshments were served here !).  It was our first trial to have poster sessions, and it added more opportunities for people to present and discuss the latest research.  

  As the Japanese organizing Committee, we were also very pleased to have more than 87 (Academic 60 + Student 27) Japanese scholars attending the conference.  Social policy academia is very strong in Japan, yet not many researchers attend international conferences.  It was a rare opportunity for them to be acquainted with the latest developments in social policy research throughout the world.

Acknowledgements

  We would like to express our deepest gratitude for the generous financial contributions.  Tokyo Metropolitan University funded a substantial portion of the conference expenses.  The Kyoto City and the Kyoto Convention & Visitors Bureau funded cultural trinkets which the participants could take home as souvenirs from Kyoto. The Lingnan University funded the student prizes.  Furthermore, we would like to thank student helpers from Kinjo Gakuin University, Kyoto University, Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto Sangyo University, National Taiwan University, Doshisha University, Kobe Gakuen University, and Osaka Metropolitan University who helped in running the conference.  Special thanks are especially given to Mr. Wenshuo Zhai and Mr. Akira Matsubara, two research assistants at the Research Center for Child and Adolescent Poverty, Tokyo Metropolitan University. 

The Organizing Committee
Aya Abe , Kiwako Endo, Yuko Tamiya

The Report of the 30th FISS/ 20th EASP Conference in Kyoto, Japan