Title: NSF/Tokyo Report: Japan Science and Technology Policy: Retooling for
         the Future
Date: April 22, 1998

The National Science Foundation's offices in Tokyo and in Paris periodically
report on developments abroad that are related to the Foundation's mission.
These documents present facts for the use of NSF program managers and policy
makers; they are not statements of NSF policy.

Report Memorandum #98-06                         April 7, 1998

          Japan's Science and Technology Policy:  Retooling for the Future*

          *          *          *          *          *

The following report was prepared by Dr. William A. Blanpied,Senior
International Analyst in the Division of International Programs at the
National Science Foundation.  This report was presented on March 17, 1998 at a
Washington D.C. forum sponsored by the Japan Information Access Project.  Dr.
Blanpied visited Japan from October 14 - December 6, 1997 as a Visiting
Research Fellow (short-term) under the sponsorship of the Japan Society for
the Promotion of Science (JSPS).  Professor Shinichi Yamamoto of the
University of Tsukuba, Japan served as host scientist for Dr. Blanpied.  Dr.
Blanpied may be reached via email at: wblanpie@nsf.gov

          *          *          *          *          *

The Science and Technology Basic Plan: Budgetary Aspects

Masao Ito, Director-General of the Brain Science Intitute at RIKEN (the
Institute of Physical and Chemical Research) and former President of the
Science Council of Japan, has characterized the Government of Japan's July
1996 adoption of its Science and Technology Basic Plan as one of the three
most significant turning points for the country's academic sector in modern
times.  Outside Japan, attention has focused primarily on the Plan's
recommendation to double "R&D investment by the Government as soon as
possible" from the 1992 level.  The Plan noted that this would require
government R&D investments of 17 trillion yen over the next five years in
order to accomplish doubling by the "desirable" year 2000.  This
recommendation was, however, accompanied by a caveat; namely:

    . . Japan's budget deficit has deteriorated, even by major western
    nations' standards, raising fears that the financial deficit will have an
    unfavorable effect on the national economy and hamper its development.  It
    is a highly urgent task to bring the national finances back on track for a
    healthy socio-economy in the 21st century.

In December 1997, the government proposed its budget for fiscal year 1998
(starting on April 1) which essentially invoked this caveat by limiting the
increase in R&D expenditures to 0.9 percent over the 1997 level, or from
approximately 3.003 trillion to approximately 3.030 trillion yen.  In
contrast, the percentage increase in initial government R&D expenditures from
1996 to 1997 was 6.8 percent.  Assuming that the Diet approves the proposed
1998 budget, total government R&D expenditures from 1996 through 1998 will be
approximately 9 trillion yen.  It is unlikely that the government will propose
to invest the 8 trillion yen that would be required to double the budget
during fiscal years 1999 and 2000.  On the other hand, the goal of doubling
the budget over the 1992 level could be achieved by 2001 by maintaining
current annual investment levels of approximately 3 trillion yen.  However,
the full extent of the problems besetting the country's financial
institutions, which only  began to be apparent in November 1997, is still not
clear.  If the government responds through fiscal measures that would increase
the budget deficit, that could continue to erode its support for R&D, at least
in the short term.

The Science and Technology Basic Plan: Organizational and Institutional
Aspects

Despite the uncertain budget environment for research, the Basic Plan includes
organizational and institutional aspects, some of which are more ambitious
(and problematic) than its financial aspects.  In essence, the Plan
articulates a policy framework with the overall goal of "constructing a new
R&D system" more effectively linked with the Japanese economy and with
Japanese society more broadly.  Specific implementation measures include, for
example:

  - introduction of a system of limited-term appointments for
    researchers in national research institutes (including national
    universities);

  - creation of 10,000 post-doctoral research positions by the
    year 2000;

  - measures to facilitate university-industry research
    cooperation, including changes in intellectual property provisions and a
    relaxation of regulations governing the external activities of national
    university faculty;

  - an increase in the proportion of research support awarded on
    a competitive basis as opposed to more traditional formula based funding;

  - systematic improvement in R&D facilities at both national
    and private universities; and

  - promotion of public understanding of science and the
    "establishment of a national consensus on science and technology."

Several of these measures will be relatively simple to implement, particularly
if adequate financial resources are forthcoming; others will require
significant changes in traditional practices and modes of thinking that have
been integral to the Japanese science system for fifty years or more. Yet even
among those in Japan who are skeptical about whether the more ambitious
organizational and institutional objectives of the Basic Plan are achievable,
there is agreement that the overall goal of restructuring the R&D system so
that it will be adequate to meet the demands of Japanese society in the new
century is eminently desirable? even essential.

Selected Institutional Innovations

Several innovations, which predate the Basic Plan, are consistent with both
its broad intent and the specific implementation measures.  Examining these
initiatives provides a means for illuminating structural barriers the Plan
seeks to overcome.  These include:

Competitive grants programs for basic research in universities. The bulk of
funding for research in Japan's national universities still comes as formula
funding from the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture
(Monbusho), even though the percentage derived from competitive funding
sources is increasing.  In 1985, formula funding supported 85 percent of all
research in national universities, 12 percent was supported by competitive
programs of government agencies, and the remaining 3 percent by industry.  In
1995, these figures were 78 percent, 17 percent, and 5 percent, respectively.
Monbusho accounted for approximately two-thirds of the competitively-derived
support for university research in 1995, with the remaining one-third coming
primarily from the Science and Technology Agency (STA) and the Ministry of
International Trade and Industry (MITI).

The competitive grants programs of agencies other than Monbusho are intended
to support relatively large projects, most of them involving collaboration
between university and non-university researchers.  For example, STA's
Exploratory Research for Advanced Technology (ERATO) program, administered
through the Japan Science and Technology Corporation (JST) and begun in 1981,
supports teams of 15 to 20 young researchers in multidisciplinary research
projects under the guidance of a senior university project director.  Projects
are supported for five years with total budgets ranging between 1.5 and 2.0
billion yen.  Involvement of industrial researchers is encouraged but not
required.

Because of regulations imposed on national universities by Monbusho, ERATO
projects cannot be conducted on campus.  Rather, projects are conducted in
rented space off campus.  Research teams consist of post-doctoral appointees
from Japan and abroad, but not from the home institution of the project
director since they cannot hire their own graduate students until after they
have received their degrees.  Nor can project directors be actively engaged in
the research itself except in an administrative capacity.  Although energetic
and talented university scientists have welcomed the opportunities for
research provided by ERATO grants, the regulating conditions imposed by
Monbusho are considered cumbersome.

STA's Core Research for Evolutional Science and Technology (CREST) program,
which was begun in 1995 and is also administered by JST, is subject to fewer
restrictions than ERATO.  By 1995, with the Science and Technology Basic Law
and Basic Plan were already near the horizon, Monbusho had begun to relax its
regulations on research at national universities.  CREST, like ERATO, supports
industrially-relevant basic research involving approximately 20 researchers
who may come from several institutions, including industrial and government
research laboratories.  Unlike ERATO projects, however, CREST projects can -
and usually are - conducted at on-campus locations.  They can - and usually do
- involve faculty from several departments of the home university, as well as
graduate students.  Two of the Basic Plan's objectives are to facilitate more
university-industry research cooperation and to increase the amount of
research funded by competitive grants.  Contrasts between ERATO and C! REST
suggest a positive prognosis for both these objectives.

The Tsukuba University Advanced Research Alliance (TARA) Program. TARA,
established in 1994, is the brainchild of Nobel Laureate Leo Esaki, who was
elected President of Tsukuba University in 1992.  It bills itself as "an
experimental organization which is testing the new system for the promotion
and production of new technology."

The competitive atmosphere at TARA is unique in Japan.  The institution is
organized around six broad research areas, or "aspects": three in the
biological and environmental sciences, two in materials science, and one in
information science.

Project coordinators - all full professors in one of Tsukuba University
science or engineering faculties - hold seven-year joint appointments at TARA,
renewable subject to the results of performance evaluations.  Projects within
each of the seven aspects are conducted by interdisciplinary,
inter-institutional groups led by other university faculty members whose
projects are selected on the basis of a competitive, peer reviewed process.
Initial project support is provided for three years, with the possibility of
extension for an additional four years, depending on the results of external
evaluation.

Few other universities have such ready access to the government and industrial
sectors as Tsukuba.  On the other hand, although Tsukuba is the most prominent
and well developed of Japan's science cities, several others have been created
during the past 10 to 20 years?for example, in the Kansai region, which
embraces the cities of Kyoto, Kobe and Osaka, and around Fukuoka, the largest
city on the southernmost island of Kyushu.  If, as President Esaki hopes, TARA
succeeds in showing some promise in meeting its objectives, perhaps
universities in these and other parts of the country might try to adapt the
model to their own circumstances.

The Nara Institute for Science and Technology (NAIST).  NAIST, established in
1991, is one of two Japanese national universities devoted exclusively to
research and graduate education.  The other is the Japan Advanced Institute of
Science and Technology (JAIST), located in Tatsunokuchi in Ishikawa
Prefecture, which was created in 1990.  A third advanced study institute,
located near Yokahama and devoted to the social sciences, is due to admit its
first students during the fall of 1998.

A significant distinction between the advanced study institutes and other
national universities lies in the limited number of disciplines encompassed.
NAIST has only three faculties: the Graduate School of Information Science
which was established in 1992 and admitted its first students in 1993; the
Graduate School of Biological Sciences which was also established in 1992 but
did not admit its first students until 1994; and the Graduate School of
Materials Sciences which was established in 1996 and will admit its first
students in the fall of 1998.

The fact that there are so few disciplines represented at NAIST permits a
concentration of financial resources conspicuously absent at other national
universities.  Each of its three graduate faculties is housed in its own large
and attractive new building; each is well equipped with state of the art
apparatus.  Faculty point with considerable pride, bordering on awe, to the
bright, spacious laboratories available to graduate students, in addition to
the large cubicles shared by only two graduate students and two PCs?conditions
which contrast sharply with the cramped and aging facilities at many national
universities. NAIST, as a new institution, was designed from the outset to
take advantage of modern information technologies.  One of the first units
established was a central information technology center which provides an
institute-wide information environment based on ultra-high-speed network
facilities and distributed computer technologies.  A wide-area network
provides co! nnections to external academic networks in Japan and abroad and
also provides various types of educational activities related to information
technology.

NAIST's very novelty may be a barrier to its ultimate success. Many, perhaps
most Japanese students aspiring to academic research careers are still more
comfortable about seeking admission to the graduate schools at universities
where they pursued their undergraduate studies, most of which are far more
prestigious institutions than NAIST or JAIST.  Whether these well endowed and
imaginative advanced study institutes can successfully surmount this
deep-seated cultural barrier remains to be seen.

The RIKEN Frontier Research Program.  The Institute of Physical and Chemical
Research (RIKEN), whose main campus is in Wako, a Tokyo suburb, is supported
almost entirely by STA.  Established in 1917, it is the oldest and, in the
opinion of many observers, perhaps the premier publicly supported scientific
organization in Japan.  With a 1996 budget of 36.4 billion yen, it is
certainly one of the best endowed.

In addition to several ongoing core research programs conducted primarily by
permanent staff, RIKEN's Frontier Research Program, started in 1986, is
designed to encourage high risk, interdisciplinary research in frontier areas
of the physical and biological sciences.  This program provides short term
contract appointments both for senior scientists from Japanese universities
and for younger scholars.  It also actively recruits visiting foreign
scientists.  In 1996, approximately 140 of the visiting scientists working on
projects within the Frontier Research Program were non-Japanese: about 50
percent of  them from the United States and Europe, with 25 percent from China
and Korea.

A Brain Science Institute (BSI) was established at RIKEN in 1997 to unify -
and greatly expand - several ongoing areas of inquiry that had previously been
pursued separately within the Frontier Research Program.  Masao Ito,
Director-General of the Brain Science Institute, envisions the work of the new
institute as a 20 year endeavor.  Three related themes are to be pursued:
Understanding the Brain (that is, elucidating brain functions), Protecting the
Brain (that is, conquering brain diseases), and Creating the Brain (that is,
developing neuro-computers).  The ultimate goal is, "to discover the reasons
why humans are humans by understanding the brain mechanisms of intelligence
and mind."   As with other research work within the Frontier Research Program,
the Brain Science Institute will actively recruit senior university
researchers, young scholars, and visiting foreign scientists.  In addition, it
will establish - and help to support - research partnerships with selected
Japa! nese university departments.  This initiative should help to vitalize
those departments selected as research partners and could even introduce a
degree of much needed competitiveness into the Japanese national university
system.  If so, it could provide an interesting model to be adopted - and
adapted - by public research institutions and university departments in other
scientific areas.

Human Resources: The Limiting Factor

Perhaps the most ambitious goal of the Science and Technology Basic Plan is to
bring about a fundamental change in approach to national priorities for
Japan's science and engineering workforce.  The introduction to the Plan
emphasizes that:

Expectations for basic research are very high; it is not only a basis for
innovative development in science and technology, but such development in
itself is valuable as intellectual property for all humans to share.  Japan,
especially, is highly expected to boldly challenge unknown fields in science
and technology.

This theme echoes assertions that have been made for several years by
scientific leaders such as Ito and Akito Arima, the President of Riken and
quite possibly the most influential scientist in Japan.  They argue that the
very future of the country requires that a premium be placed on the
performance of creative, high quality research.  Yet the number of adequately
qualified people remains disappointingly low.  In 1994, for example, the
numbers of PhDs awarded in the natural sciences in the US and the UK were
approximately 10,000 and 8,600, respectively; during that same year Japan
produced only slightly more than 1,100.  Rather than pursuing research
careers, most young Japanese scientists opt for more routine careers in
industry where the PhD degree is not required and, in fact, may not even be
valued.  Arima has also noted that whereas the number of papers in
international peer reviewed scientific journals by Japanese authors was second
only to those with US authors during that year, the number of papers
normalized to Gross Domestic Product was only one third as large: 100 vs. 300.

[Indeed by this measure, the productivity of UK scientists was larger than US
scientists, since the number of peer reviewed scientific papers per GDP was
400, vs. 300 for the United States.]  Leaving aside questions about the merits
of this particular indicator as a measure of scientific creativity, the fact
remains that Arima and his colleagues are convinced that unless Japan can
increase the proportion of young scientists who are able and willing to devote
themselves to research careers, the country will be ill equipped to address
the social and economic needs of the new century.

The principal rationale underlying the Basic Plan's recommendation for a
substantial increase in government R&D investments is to provide what is
regarded as adequate support for research in universities and public research
facilities - the sites where most of the creative basic research so desired by
the scientific leadership is conducted.  The competitive grant programs
favored by the Plan also emphasize research opportunities for young
scientists.  Additionally, the Plan includes specific measures designed to
encourage young scientists to gain experience with independent research: for
example, creation of attractive five-year contract positions for new PhD's as
an alternative to immediate, often permanent appointment to junior positions
in university research groups headed by their mentors; and an increase in the
number of available post-doctoral research positions from approximately 8,000
to 10,000 by the year 2000.  Both measures are intended to enhance the quality
of the!
 research conducted in universities and government laboratories, and to
 promote the mobility of scientific personnel.  They also aim to improve the
 capabilities
of talented young people before they embark on life-long careers which,
traditionally, are spent in a single organization.

Yet significant barriers will have to be surmounted in order to increase
substantially the number of Japanese PhD scientists engaged in what the
leadership regards as creative research.  Most obviously, the country is
currently producing far too few PhDs in science to fill even a moderate
fraction of the 10,000 post-doctoral positions that are to be created by the
year 2,000.  Thus, for the foreseeable future young foreign scientists -
including a significant number from Asia - will occupy a sizeable fraction of
those positions.  Any substantial increase in PhD production will itself
require a considerable expansion in opportunities available to new PhDs.  In
the United States and to a somewhat lesser extent in Europe, private industry
employs significant numbers of PhDs.  This is decidedly not the case in Japan,
where the PhD degree is required only for entry-level positions in national
universities and publicly financed research organizations.  With some notable
exceptions, the research facilities available in these organizations are still
inferior to those available in private industry, and this in itself
constitutes a disincentive towards seeking a PhD degree.

The tradition of life-long employment in a single organization coupled with a
system in which promotions and rewards are determined on the basis of
seniority rather than initiative and merit may constitute the most formidable
barriers to the goal of encouraging the creative potential of young
researchers.  From a US perspective, the opportunity for a new PhD to conduct
independent research in a first class facility under the terms of a five-year
contract appointment or a post-doctoral fellowship before making a commitment
to a long-term position is exceedingly attractive.  From the perspective of a
young Japanese scientist, the prospect of striking out in such a
semi-independent direction without the security of a future position is
unsettling.  Even those who are exhilarated by the challenge provided by
opportunities for independent research must recognize that they will
eventually be employed in a system in which seniority remains all important
with the result that their research accomplishments during their early,
independent years may not be viewed in an entirely positive light.

Japan's scientific leadership, who were instrumental in crafting the Science
and Technology Basic Law that underlies the Basic Plan, are well aware that a
fundamental cultural change will be required if the all important human
resources objectives of the Plan are to be realized.  But it would be a
serious error to regard the existing barriers to such a change as
insurmountable. Masao Ito, who characterizes adoption of the Basic Plan as the
third fundamental turning point for science in Japan, has explained that the
first took place during the four decades between the 1850s and the turn of the
last century.  During those years of the Meiji Restoration, Japan transformed
itself  from a feudal society that had been cut off from the world for two and
a half centuries into the foremost industrial power in Asia.  Much of that
transformation was accomplished because rising generations of younger Japanese
were challenged to think and act in ways that were at odds with the
traditional culture.

Conceivably, rising generations of younger Japanese scientists revitalize
Japan's science system, as envisioned by the Basic Plan, if given consistent
encouragement and support.

Note on Sources

Homepages of the organizations mentioned in this presentation are accessible
through a website maintained by the National Science Foundation's Tokyo
Regional Office: http://www.twics.com/~nsftokyo/japan.html

----------------------

*Note: Summary of a March 17, 1998 presentation sponsored by the Japan
Information Access Project, Washington, D.C.  The opinions of the author are
his own and do not necessarily reflect the policies of the National Science
Foundation or the US Government.