esse-sense Future Forum 2026
Where Research Knowledge Meets Society
📍 Tokyo Midtown Yaesu, Tokyo, Japan
📅 16–17 September 2026
The esse-sense Future Forum 2026 is a unique gathering designed to bridge one of society’s most persistent divides: the distance between frontier research and its real-world application.
Across two days in Tokyo, more than 170 researchers and approximately 1,000 participants come together to explore how scientific knowledge, creativity, and interdisciplinary dialogue can contribute to shaping the future.
Organised by esse-sense and co-hosted by Miratuku, the forum creates opportunities for researchers, companies, startups, policymakers, funders, and the wider public to meet face-to-face. It is both a conference and a festival of encounters — a space where ideas move beyond papers and laboratories and begin their journey into society.
About the Forum
Research often develops within specialised communities, circulating through journals, laboratories, and academic conferences long before its insights reach the broader world. The esse-sense Future Forum was created to shorten that distance.
Emerging from the broader esse-sense platform — originally founded around the researchers of the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) and now connected to more than twenty universities and institutions — the annual forum celebrates the people behind new knowledge and the futures they imagine.
The event spans disciplines and perspectives, bringing together voices from:
Well-being and health
Climate change and biodiversity
Urban design and the future of cities
Food systems and sustainability
Neuroscience and cognitive science
Information science and AI
Economics and public systems
Science, technology, and the arts
The conversations that emerge become catalysts for new collaborations, social implementation, and future-oriented innovation.
By the Numbers
1,000+ participants
170 researchers and speakers
36 sessions
20+ university and institutional partners
Themes
Building on previous editions, the forum explores how knowledge can move into action through themes such as:
Co-creating knowledge to envision and realise future societies
Frontier topics shaping the next era
Deep tech and science startup collaborations
Funding ecosystems connecting research and society
Innovation and leadership for systemic change
Designing encounters between researchers and organisations
Translating research into entrepreneurial action
Why Attend?
The esse-sense Future Forum offers a rare opportunity to engage directly with researchers working at the frontiers of knowledge while exploring how emerging ideas can inform business, policy, entrepreneurship, and society.
It is not simply about disseminating expertise. It is about creating the conditions for unexpected encounters — where curiosity meets implementation, and where research knowledge becomes a shared resource for imagining and building the future.
As the organisers describe it: this is the place where research knowledge meets society.