Shimon Sakaguchi, an immunologist who won this year’s Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine, has one big message about science funding: invest in a diversity of basic research, knowing that some projects won’t yield results.

“We need to support science with the understanding that some will go to waste, that science has a poor success rate,” Sakaguchi, 74, said in an online interview with The Japan Times on Wednesday, two days after the nation rejoiced at the news of him winning the coveted prize along with two American scientists.

“If such an infrastructure is established, we will have more people with big ambitions and young people pursuing science.”

Sakaguchi’s words carry weight, as he himself engaged in research that was once considered dodgy or even dangerous. Early in his career, he struggled to gain support for a hypothesis that there must be an unknown class of cells in the human body that keep immune systems in check.

Without a paid research position in Japan, Sakaguchi sought help in the U.S. and received a generous eight-year scholarship from the Lucille Markey Foundation. It was with this private foundation’s support that he pursued research at prestigious institutions such as Johns Hopkins University and Stanford University in the 1980s, which led to his seminal 1995 paper on T cells that prevent immune cells from attacking people’s bodies, called regulatory T cells.

“I was able to receive the scholarship even though I was a foreigner, because my idea was considered interesting,” he said, noting that the foundation was created by a horse owner and winner of the Kentucky Derby who requested in her will to use up her estate in 15 years on basic medical research. “There’s a culture in the U.S. that supports science.”

While the U.S. under the second administration of Donald Trump has drastically reversed course, slashing funding for various U.S. science institutions, Sakaguchi said Japan should do more to diversify sources of research funding, including by making it easier for individuals to make donations.

“If tax systems are changed (to incentivize) people to donate to science research, and if more aid organizations are created, many ideas will be born, such as supporting researchers studying particular diseases or those researching infectious diseases afflicting Africa, for example,” he said. “I hope our society will mature that way.”

At the same time, since Japan aspires to remain a nation built on science, the government should do more to increase the number of research positions in academia, he argued.

“What’s important at the end of the day is person-to-person connections. We need to pass on what’s intangible, with teachers imparting (knowledge) to students. In that sense, I hope more research positions will be created.”

The kind of attacks on science unfolding in the U.S. is not entirely foreign in Japan. In July’s Upper House elections, Sanseito, an upstart party known for its anti-vaccine and anti-climate change rhetoric, won 14 seats.

Sakaguchi said he is not personally so worried about the situation in Japan.

“There should be diverse views in society,” he said. “In science, there may be all sorts of opinions, but in the end, things tend to settle where they should.”

But it is important for everyone in society to adopt the habit of looking at things logically and scientifically, he said.

“What’s important is how much society has the habit of thinking things based on facts and drawing logical conclusions, while keeping in mind that the conclusions are not final and could evolve,” he said. “I would like to see education (that fosters such a mindset).”