Professor Takashi Onishi has been President of Science Council of Japan (SCJ), since October, 2011 (for its 22nd term), representing 840,000 scientists in Japan. In accordance with this inauguration, he has joined the Council for Science and Technology Policy (established within the Cabinet Office in January 2001) as a Head of an Affiliated Organization, through which he has engaged in Japan’s integrated efforts to advance science and technology (S&T) in a comprehensive and well-planned manner.

Back in 1980, he acquired his Ph.D. degree in Engineering at The University of Tokyo, where he has been a professor since 1995, originally of the Department of Urban Engineering of Faculty of Engineering, and currently the Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, and Department of Urban Engineering of Graduate School of Engineering. Since 1996, he has also been serving as a Visiting Professor at the Institute of Advanced Studies of United Nations University.

With his fields of study on City Planning & Regional Planning, as well as on Social Systems Engineering & Safety System, Professor Onishi has been dedicating himself, as President of SCJ, to make scientific expertise of all discipline to help reconstruction of suffered areas and people after the Great East Japan Earthquake and other significant issues, not only in Japan, but also those in this world through international collaboration with academies and relevant institutes overseas.

In December, 2011, by Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, he was appointed as the chair of the Frontier Subcommittee of the Council on National Strategy and Policy, which was established in order for setting out a vision that brings about a breakthrough in the current situations in Japan, such as those for recovery and reconstruction from the Great East Japan Earthquake, the battle against the nuclear power station accident, and the revitalization of the Japanese economy.