EDITORIAL Social intelligence design: a junction between engineering and social sciences Asako Miura Æ Naohiro Matsumura Published online: 5 September 2007 Ó Springer-Verlag London Limited 2007 1 Overview: the meaning and achievements of SID2006 This special issue of AI and Society contains a selection of papers presented at the 5th International Workshop of Social Intelligence Design held at Osaka University Nakanoshima Center, Osaka, Japan, in March 2006. Nishida (2001) defined social intelligence design (SID) as a research field attempts to integrate understanding and designing social intelligence. On the one hand, it involves engineering approaches concerning design and implementation of systems and environments, ranging from group/team oriented collaboration support systems that facilitate common ground building, goal-oriented interaction among participants, to community support systems that support large-scale online- discussion. On the other hand, it involves scientific approaches addressing cognitive and social psychological understanding of social intelligence, and provides a means for predicting and evaluating the effect of a given communication medium on the nature of discussions, interaction dynamics, and conclusions. In addition, it encompasses pragmatic considerations from economy, sociology, ethics and many other disciplines, for social intelligence design has a direct relation with the society. The engineering and analytical approaches are complementary to each other and A. Miura (&) Department of Psychology, Kobe Gakuin University, 518 Arise, Ikawadani-cho, Nishi, Kobe, Hyogo 651-2180, Japan e-mail: asarin@team1mile.com N. Matsumura Graduate School of Economics, Osaka University, 1-7 Machikaneyama-cho, Toyonaka, Osaka 560-0043, Japan e-mail: matumura@econ.osaka-u.ac.jp 123 AI & Soc (2009) 23:139–145 DOI 10.1007/s00146-007-0139-9