Tokyo

Japan's budget for science and technology is to be substantially increased in the next fiscal year, thanks primarily to a government move to promote industries in areas such as biotechnology, information sciences and the environment.

Particularly marked increases are aimed at developing research into genomics and its applications and into cell biology, which will receive a 12-fold increase in support for the construction of a national research centre.

The government's budget request for the financial year 2000, which begins on 1 April, was unveiled last week. It contains funding for various projects supported by prime minister Keizo Obuchi's Millennium Project (see Nature 401, 3; 1999), including a proteomics programme to determine the function of proteins through genome sequencing, and a plan to map single-nucleotide polymorphisms in the Japanese population.

Obuchi's project would be funded by a one-off appropriation to develop an infrastructure for telecommunications, science, technology and the environment for the next century. It is expected to total ¥301.5 billion (US$2.87 billion), and is intended to help Japan establish a sounder economic base.

This will be added to a relatively modest budget request for 2000, which, at ¥3.18 trillion, is an increase of only 0.8 per cent over this year's science and technology budget. Table 1

Table 1 Highlights of requested budget for science and technology for fiscal year 2000.
Full size table

The budget for genomics, one of the largest beneficiaries of the appropriation, will more than triple to ¥81.5 billion. This includes ¥7.4 billion for the rice genome-sequencing project, which is being accelerated (see Nature 401, 102; 1999).

Increased support for genomics is in line with the government's plan to double spending on biotechnology-related research over the next five years (see Nature 400, 389; 1999). It is to inject ¥2 trillion, bringing spending on genomics to at least 0.2 per cent of the country's gross domestic product.

The government plans to launch genome projects that can be carried out at an interministerial level. Five ministries, including the Science and Technology Agency (STA) and the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI), will be involved. Such efforts have previously been carried out by individual ministries.

The cell-biology research budget is to rise by a factor of 12 to ¥12 billion, of which ¥10.5 billion is from the special appropriation.

The money will fund research into the development, differentiation and regeneration of plant and animal cells at the new national research centre, due to be built by 2001, and at two centres for applied genomics and plant genome research.

According to Mitsuru Miyata, editor of the Japanese biotechnology newsletter Nikkei Biotechnology, cell biology was proposed as a priority area in the life sciences in 1997 by Japan's Science and Technology Council, its principal science policy-making body.

“The government has realized the importance of more integrated research into the interactions of genes and cells as a step up from its previous research in molecular biology,” says Miyata, adding that he hopes “it will mark a turning point in Japan's biotechnology research”.

Increased support for collaboration between industry, government-run research institutes and universities is another main feature of the budget request, particularly with the impending launch of a new technology-transfer bill, based on the 1980 US Bayh–Dole legislation.

The requested budget for 2000 may still not be enough to meet its target of increasing the country's science spending to ¥17 trillion by 2001, however — overall science spending is expected to total ¥16.7 trillion during the fiscal year 2000.