The government's latest Science and Technology Basic Plan, adopted last month by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Cabinet, will guide national policy for the next five fiscal years. It seeks to turn Japan into the world's most innovation-friendly country and build a "supersmart society" to cope with the nation's various socioeconomic challenges. It calls for government spending of ¥26 trillion over the five years starting with fiscal 2016 — or 1 percent of the nation's gross domestic product each year — on science and technology investments.
However, as the plan acknowledges, Japan's research competence as a whole has declined over the years. This is a result of the government's past policy mistakes. Unless the government seriously examines what has gone wrong and correct the errors where necessary, such a plan will be meaningless.
Such five-year plans have been compiled since the Diet enacted the Basic Law on Science and Technology in 1995 at the initiative of lawmakers to beef up the foundation of Japan's scientific research. The latest plan emphasizes the need for Japan to push innovations in science and technology to cope with various socioeconomic problems, which are complex due to the low fertility rate and graying of the population, the impoverished state of regional economies and changes in the national security environment. One section of the plan calls for greater cooperation among the government, the business sector and the academia in the field of defense.