tokyo

Japan's Science and Technology Agency is planning a dramatic increase in its budget for brain science and genomics next fiscal year. The agency's budget request for 1999 submitted on Monday this week (31 August) also includes new funds for a deep-sea drilling ship that is intended to play a key role in the extension of the international Ocean Drilling Programme.

Despite Japan's economic woes, the government continues to plough new money into science and technology. The Science and Technology Agency is asking for an increase of only 2.9 per cent in its standard budget for fiscal year 1999, which starts in April next year. But it is also requesting an extra ¥17.8 billion (US$123 million), equivalent to an additional 2.3 per cent, under a special appropriation to develop infrastructure for telecommunications, science and technology, and the environment for the next century.

This special one-off appropriation, which is available for all science-related ministries and agencies in 1999 and is expected to total ¥150 billion, is intended to help Japan establish a sounder economic base. The agency's request may be cut back before approval by the Cabinet and Ministry of Finance at the end of the year, but such adjustments are usually minor.

The agency is requesting ¥9.1 billion — ¥6.8 billion more than this year — to bring together the life sciences and information sciences in a broad new area of research that encompasses bioinformatics but also covers elucidation of such things as information processing in the brain. Some ¥6.4 billion will come from the special appropriation for this programme.

Partly because of this appropriation, the budget for genome science is increased 66 per cent to ¥11.6 billion, including ¥7.7 billion for a new genomic science centre to be established by the Institute of Physical and Chemical Research (RIKEN) in Yokohama (see Nature 392, 219; 1998), see table. Some ¥3.3 billion of the total will come from the special appropriation.

Table 1 Highlights of Japan's Science and Technology Agency budget request for fiscal year 1999
Full size table

The centre will open a temporary office in October at RIKEN's main campus in Wako city until its new building is completed in Yokohama in 2000. It will focus on three areas of research: cDNA sequencing and investigation of genome function for both humans and mice; development of a ‘gene encyclopedia’ of the mouse genome; and an NMR park for investigating protein function and structure.

Similarly, the budget for brain science is increased 36 per cent to ¥19 billion, including ¥11.7 billion for the new Brain Science Institute at RIKEN's main campus. The increased budget also includes ¥3 billion of the new money for life and information sciences.

Other beneficiaries of the special appropriation will be the world's marine geologists. The agency is requesting ¥5.7 billion for a deep-sea drilling ship expected to be completed in 2003. Researchers at the Japan Marine Science and Technology Center, who are leading the programme, are confident of getting a total budget of US$120 million for the ship's design and construction over the next three years.

The ship will have ‘riser technology’ adapted from the petroleum industry and will allow drilling to much greater depths in the Earth's crust and in more difficult geological terrain. The ship is intended to play a key role in the future of the Ocean Drilling Programme beyond 2003, when the current phase of the programme ends (see Nature 388, 409; 1997 & 394, 820; 1998).

The agency's budget also gives the first signs of the pending merger of the agency with the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture (see Nature 390, 327; 1997). The ministry and agency are making joint requests for some projects, for example, to fund research on the Moon by both the National Space Development Agency, affiliated to the agency, and the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science under the education ministry.