Summary:

Child Research Net (CRN), established in 1996 in Japan to solve the issues that affect children around the world, is an Internet-based child research institute under the concept of interdisciplinary “Child Science.” Our trilingual website in Japanese, English, and Chinese, introduces wide-ranging research from medicine and brain science to education, developmental psychology and sociology. Activities beyond the website include interdisciplinary activities, international conferences and symposia on essential social issues. CRN comprises a vast network of professionals, researchers and practitioners who care about children’s issues as a consequence of implementing these activities.

Looking back at our activities, we here report on how CRN has made contributions in the field of Child Science as a hub to facilitate interdisciplinary discussions on child issues. Specifically, we will focus on the 22 years of CRN activities --"Pursuing a new form of learning (1996-2006; learning from Western countries)"; "Tackling common issues throughout East Asia (2007-2015; led by Japan)"; "Focusing on global and future issues mainly in Asia (2016-; collaborative activity with Asian countries)"-- to indicate how we have been developing our research on "ECEC," "Playful pedagogy," etc., all of which contribute to the well-being of children from the perspective of Child Caring Design. Meanwhile, we also report on our comparative research on ECEC practices in addition to the underlying childcaring philosophies and cultural values among Japan and other countries/regions, which revealed the common grounds as well as the differences of ECEC in these countries.