Science Policy in Japan and JSPS Activities

Speaker: Hitoshi Osaki
   Director General, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science

KOSHIBA  We should like to start the session. Please take your seat.

 Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this Science Forum. First of all, let me express our sincerest gratitude to the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and the American Association for the Advancement of Science for being the co-sponsors of this Forum. This meeting is the first attempt of its kind, and if it turns out to be a success, we would like to make it an annual event. Now since our time is limited, we have asked our first speaker to give a talk on science policies in Japan and JSPS's activities.

 The speaker, Mr. Hitoshi Osaki, is the director general of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science . He served at the Monbusho (Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture) for a great many years. Currently, he is not only the director general of our Society, but also is a member of the Monbusho's Science Council, as well as a member of the Policy Committee of the Council for Science and Technology of the Prime Minister's Office. Mr. Osaki, please give your talk.

OSAKI

 Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, it is a great privilege for me to speak before such distinguished participants.

 First of all, I would like to express, on behalf of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, our sincere gratitude for your extending kind support and assistance to this Forum and to JSPS's programs.

 Professor Koshiba assigned me this task of making a presentation on Japan's science policies and JSPS's activities. I would like to deliver it in three parts. First, I would like to introduce the recent development of science policies in Japan. Second, I would like to describe the JSPS's activities in the context of that development. And third, I will explain our efforts for developing international scientific exchange and cooperation.

 First, I would like to touch on major moves in Japan's recent science policies. These days, voices are growing among leaders of various sectors that the advancement of S&T is a key to solving many difficult problems. The enactment of the "Fundamental Law on Science and Technology" last November has opened new stages of S&T policies in Japan.

 The legislation of the law shows clearly that the promotion of S&T is placed by the Japanese government as one of its top priority policies. The name of the law might be translated in different ways, such as the "Science and Technology Basic Law".

 The law stipulates the role and responsibility of the government for promoting S&T. By this law, the government is required to take appropriate measures for promoting S&T.

 The most important point of the law is that it reguires the government to make a master plan for the promotion of S&T, in which a comprehensive guideline for advancing R&D is to be provided and measures for enhancing the research environment, fostering and securing qualified scientists, and so on are to be taken.

 The Science and Technology Council, which is under the chairmanship of the Prime Minister, set up a committee for that purpose. If everything goes well, it will submit a report on a 5-year master plan to the Prime Minister by the end of this June. The master plan will become the fundamental basis for science policies in Japan.

 Another big movement in Japan's science policies is a large budget increase for S&T. In the FY 1996 budget, special emphasis is put on S&T-related expenditures.

 As you will note in Chart 1, the government's 1996 draft budget for S&T-related expenditures has increased by 8.6% over the previous year, while the total amount of expenditures has increased by only 2.4%. In this trend, we can recognize the strong effects of the new law.

 The legislation of the new law and the FY 1996 draft budget symbolize new trends of science policies in Japan. There seems to be a consensus among Japanese people that the promotion of S&T is a key for securing a bright national future.

 In this new budget, two new important programs have started with the strong support of the government and the ruling political parties. One is a five-year plan for supporting 10,000 young researchers. The main point of the plan is that the government will support 10,000 postdoctoral researchers and Ph.D. candidates yearly by the end of this century.

 Based on this plan, in the FY 1996 state draft budget, fellowship awardees and special kind of research associates have increased in number of more than 2,000 over the previous year. That is, from 3,375 to nearly 6,000. In this increase, the JSPS fellowships program holds the biggest share among the various programs. JSPS is expected to play the central role in implementing this 5-year fellowship plan.

 The other new program is the government's investment in quasi-governmental corporations for enabling them to launch new contract-research programs. Some 32.1 billion yen is allocated to six corporations for these new programs. In this investment, 11 billion yen is allocated to JSPS for its university-centered new program named "Research for the Future".

 This was a very rough description of the recent trends. Next, I would like to introduce JSPS's activities briefly in the context of what I mentioned above. Chart 2 shows the JSPS budgets of recent years. The two columns in Chart 1 show the government's FY 1995 and 1996 budgets. As you notice in Chart 2, our budget has doubled in FY 1996. This big increase is caused mainly by the government's new investment in our "Research for the Future" Program as well as by its funding of our fellowship program for young researchers.

 The JSPS programs are divided into three categories. Chart 3 shows a breakdown of our budget.

 The first category is our program for fostering young researchers. As I already mentioned, we are playing a major role in implementing the 10,000 young scientists-support plan. We will implement the plan mainly by increasing our existing fellowship programs for postdoctoral researchers and doctoral course-students. Concerning the implementation of the 10,000 young researchers-support plan, I should add two things: First, we are going to include in it our postdoctoral fellowships for foreign researchers program. Second, we are going to promote recruiting young researchers of both Japan and other countries in implementing the Research for the Future Program, as part of this plan.

 The second category is the new contract research program (Research for the Future Program), which I already mentioned. Up to now, JSPS has been carrying out a long-standing program for promoting cooperation between universities and industry by way of organizing university-industry research cooperation committees. At the moment, we are running 46 committees in important areas. In a broader sense, this program and the new Research for the Future Program fall into the same category.

 The third category is for the promotion of international exchange and cooperation. I will explain it in the last part of my presentation. The fundamental bases for researchers to develop international cooperation are to find good counterpart researchers and to develop personal relations with them. In order to provide researchers with good opportunities to do so, we are conducting two kinds of programs. One is an invitation program. We award fellowships to foreign researchers through application from Japanese researchers who propose to be their hosts. In the case of postdoctoral fellowships, some awardees are selected through nomination by our couterpart organizations in respective countries.

 The other kind of international programs are bilateral exchange programs. Based on agreements with our counterpart organizations, we are exchanging researchers between Japan and these respective countries.

 In addition to inviting and sending individual researchers, we have supported small-scale joint seminars and joint researchers in close cooperation with our counterpart organizations like NSF and NIH. Recently, responding to growing requests from researchers of both Japan and foreign countries, we have come to think that we should play an active role in promoting more organized scientific cooperation. A couple of years ago, we started a new program named Inter-Research Centers Cooperative Program. Its concept is to make a bridge for cooperation between strong research centers or groups of Japan and other countries in collaboration with our counterpart organizations.

 Chart 4 provides a list of on-going projects. This program is rather new; thus, we have not yet implemented many projects. I am pleased to say, however, that NSF and JSPS are jointly supporting a very good cooperative project between the NSF Science and Technology Center at The University of Rochester and the Institute for Molecular Science in Japan. In order to develop this center-to-center type cooperation, we are also planning to make use of the Research for the Future Program.

 Finally, I would like to take up the most crucial issue of Japan's international programs. It is the imbalance of researcher exchanges between Japan and other advanced countries. As Chart 5 shows, Japan has sent many researchers to advanced countries while it has received much fewer from these countries. The chart shows the case of Japan's national universities. Last year, while more than 12,000 thousand Japanese national university researchers visited U.S., only a little more than 3,000 U.S. researchers visited Japan. You will notice in this chart that a similar situation of exchange exists with European countries as well.

 Water flows from high to low, and researchers flow from low to high. Therefore, the most important thing in improving this imbalance will be to create attractive research environments in Japan. The Japanese government has come to realize this necessity. Now, the Monbusho and other ministries are making efforts to create or to enhance so-called Centers of Excellence in Japan.

 However, making attractive research environments alone, is not enough to improve the imbalance. Just like water cannot flow from high to low if some obstacles block it, researchers' flow to Japan tends to be blocked by long distances and high expenditures. I believe that it is our task to remove these obstacles by expanding our researcher-invitation programs, which I mentioned above.

 I have been encouraged by reading comments in the reports submitted to us by foreign researchers who visited Japan through our programs. Many of them gave us their impressions that research activities in Japan are much better than they had expected before they came to Japan.

 These comments by foreign researchers also teach us the necessity of disseminating information on research in Japan. I think this forum can be regarded as one of our efforts toward that end.

 In concluding my short presentation, I would like to emphasize the crucial importance that scientific exchange and cooperation with the United States holds for us. I sincerely solicit your warm support for our efforts.

 Thank you for your kind attention.

KOSHIBA

 Time is rather limited. Therefore, we will take questions after the next talk, that is, during the coffee break. When you are asking questions, there are two microphones. And before you ask the question, please state your name and affiliation clearly so that we can include all those questions and answers in the proceedings.

 Our next speaker is Professor Toshio Sata.