Special issue on JSME symposium: Sports engineering and human dynamics

The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers (JSME) was founded in 1897 to ‘‘advance science and technology, and thereby contribute to the development of industries.’’ Today, its membership exceeds 34,000, making it Japan’s leading engineering society. JSME is comprised of 22 technical divisions. The activities of each technical division are similar to that of an independent society, where each division has its own budget, can host conferences and various meetings, and can conduct research activities. Sports Engineering and Human Dynamics (SHD) is the newest division, which was launched in April 2015. SHD was a professional committee in the JSME before being developed into a technical division. SHD’s objectives include to make our leisure and everyday life safer and more comfortable, and to develop a new field of mechanical engineering. The SHD Symposium is an annual conference and has been held every Autumn since 1986. Recently, the average number of papers and participants have been in the 100s and 200s, respectively. In every symposium, presented papers are evaluated to encourage young researchers, the best of which are awarded prizes. During the process, a Top 10 list of best papers is developed which includes papers from veteran authors. The authors from the Top 10 list are then encouraged to publish papers in the journal, Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part P: Journal of Sports Engineering and Technology.