Norio Tokumaru obtained his Ph.D. in economics from Kyoto University. He is a Professor of Economics at Faculty of Policy Studies, Kansai University, Osaka, Japan. His main research interests include the comparative political economy of innovation systems and the institutional foundations of emerging, novel approaches to industrial and innovation policies. He is the co-editor of the books including Servitization, IT-ization, and Innovation Models: Two-stage industrial cluster theory (Routledge, 2013), and Innovative ICT Industrial Architecture in East Asia (Springer, 2017). He serves as an Associate Editor of Evolutionary and Institutional Economics Review. Chino Yabunaga is a Professor of Social Policy of the Faculty of Global and Regional Studies of Toyo University. Her main research theme is the comparative study of welfare states and societies. She published several books in Japanese including Child Care Policies in the World (Horitsu Bunka Sha Publising, 2012), Welfare State and Tourism: A New Industrial Strategy in Nordic Countries and Japan (Sairyusha Publishing, 2018). Also, one of her works in English is ‘The Welfare State and COVID-19 Countermeasures: The Relationship of Trust and Cooperation between Citizens and Their Governments in Sweden and Finland’ in Suzuki, N. et al (eds.) Public Behavioural Responses to Policy Making during the Pandemic, (Routledge, forthcoming). She was the chair of the Japan Association for Northern European Studies, and a former board member of the Japan Association of Political Sciences. Yuriko Shibayama is an Associate Professor of Department of Nordic Studies, School of Cultural and Social Studies, Tokai University in Kanagawa, Japan. She earned her Master's degree in Social Sciences from Graduate School of Social Sciences, Waseda University in 2008. She specializes in comparative politics, with a focus on studies on Nordic politics and welfare states, especially Finnish party politics and history of social policy. Her recent research interests include the political process of pensions and health insurance in Finland and creative society policy in the post-industrial era.
