The new open access article “REALIGN Toolkit: Reflexivity, Adaptability, Leadership, and Inclusion as Pillars of Responsible Research and Innovation” (Wellcome Open Res 2026, 11:8), co-authored by DIJ’s Celia Spoden, discusses how research and innovation can be made more ethically responsible for societal needs. It introduces a new toolkit — which focuses on the four main principles reflexivity, adaptability, leadership, inclusion (REALIGN) — for those involved in innovation to help ensure that new technologies are developed in ways that are fair, thoughtful, and truly useful to the people they are meant to serve. Based on three real-life examples of technologies designed to help people with frailty, including individuals with disabilities, and other vulnerable populations, the article makes recommendations to ensure key stakeholders are meaningfully involved from the very start of research and development. The article includes a discussion of Celia’s research at Tokyo’s Avatar Robot Café DAWN.

Known for its frequent occurrence of natural disasters, Japan follows an exceedingly proactive approach in most areas of its disaster management protocols. They include comprehensive disaster response plans at the national, prefectural, and local levels. Utilizing document analysis, participant observation, and informal interviews, the book chapter “Disaster Preparedness and Response for Companion Animals in Japan” by DIJ sociologist Barbara Holthus explores laws, directives, and preparatory work in place to aid companion animals (pets) during disasters. The study focuses on animal welfare, barriers to successful evacuation, and international best practices. While disaster awareness and preparation are considered as a regular focus of public life in Japan, urban-rural disparities are seen to have considerable impacts on the preparedness of pet owners in disaster settings. The chapter is published in The Palgrave Handbook of Human-Animal Interactions in the Global Context of Climate Change, Disasters, and Other Crises, edited by H. Wu, K. Breen, and S. E. DeYoung (Springer Nature 2026).

Thailand is a highly centralized unitary state. Provincial governors are appointed by Bangkok’s Ministry of the Interior and local administrations rely heavily on central government transfers. This centralization reflects not only elite interests but also a political culture shaped by the kingdom’s transformation from a loosely integrated multi-ethnic empire into a centralized nation-state, first under European imperial pressure and later during the Cold War. As David M. Malitz shows in “A Kingdom ‘One and Indivisible'”, debates about political decentralization date back to the early twentieth century and resurfaced particularly during the period of democratization in the 1990s as well as after the 2014 military coup. Japan has repeatedly been referenced in these debates and the Japan International Cooperation Agency provided capacity-building programs for local authorities in the 2000s to support decentralization efforts. His chapter is published in From Empire to Federation in Eurasia. Ideas and Practices of Diversity Management (Routledge 2026).

Vocational and industrial training loomed large in Japanese colonial education in Korea. Between 1910 and 1945, Japanese authorities implemented an education system that concentrated on industrial education for Koreans, who were generally portrayed as possessing a low level of civilization. Geared toward assimilating Koreans as Japanese subjects, this system was characterized by segregation and discrimination with severely restricted access to higher education for Koreans. Comparing the perspectives of missionaries, Korean students, and Japanese colonial authorities, Dolf-Alexander Neuhaus‘ book chapter “Training the Heart, the Head, and the Hand”: Colonial Education, Missionaries, and Industrial Schools in Korea, 1906–1930 examines the YMCA’s pioneering role in industrial education as a site where Protestant work ethics, Korean aspirations for modernization, and colonial policy converged — and sometimes directly conflicted. The chapter is published in The Gospel of Work and Money. Industrial Education and Its Global Legacies, edited by O. Charbonneau and K. V. Walther (University of Pennsylvania Press 2026).