government r&d 

 programs 



In addition to its funding and pol- 

 icymai<ing roles, the Japanese Gov- 

 ernment is a performer of R&D 

 through the more than 80 national 

 institutes and public corporations 

 which conduct ongoing research.'^ 

 In addition to ongoing research at 

 the research institutes, there are a 

 number of large-scale, special R&D 

 programs that have been irutiated by 

 STA and MITI which focus primarily 

 on basic research and the develop- 

 ment of new technologies. 



The Exploratory Research for Ad- 

 vanced Technology program (ER- 

 ATO) was implemented in 1981 to 

 provide basic research in potentially 

 revolutionary technologies that are 

 of prohibitive research cost to pri- 

 vate industry. ERATO is directed by 

 the Research Development Corpo- 



"A listing and description of the most significant 

 of these research institutes is in the Tokyo Office of 

 the U.S. National Science Foundation, Directory of 

 Selected Japanese Scientific Research Institutes, op. cit. 



ration of Japan, and research out- 

 puts are to be made publicly avaUable 

 for commercial exploitation. Through 

 1986, 12 different projects — with av- 

 erage expected durations of 5 years 

 and average total budgets of con- 

 stant (1982) $8 million— have been 

 adopted. These projects are listed in 

 table C-1. 



Within MITI, AIST has estab- 

 lished several well-publicized joint 

 research enterprises with selected 

 industrial firms (e.g., the Large-Scale, 

 Sunshine, and Moonlight Projects). 

 MITI provides these projects with 

 partial funding and, in some in- 

 stances, also provides the facilities 

 of its research institutes; the firms 

 contribute key researchers and the 

 remaining funding. A list of major 

 AIST projects and their purposes are 

 presented in table C-2. MITI also 

 sponsors the Fifth Generation Com- 

 puter Program, a 10-year research 

 program instituted in 1982. Re- 

 search in conjunction with the Fifth 

 Generation Computer Program is 

 conducted at the specially created 

 Institute for New Generation Com- 

 puter Technology (ICOT), and fo- 

 cuses on advanced information 



processing, especially parallel com- 

 puting and artificial intelligence. 



Finally and most recently, the 

 Frontier Research Program was ini- 

 tiated in 1986 under the aegis of RI- 

 KEN, a major research institute 

 affiliated with STA. The program 

 aims to discover new knowledge that 

 will serve as the basis for technolog- 

 ical innovation in the 21st century; 

 the two research themes of the pro- 

 gram are (1) the biological founda- 

 tions of homeostasis mechanisms in 

 plant and animal life, and (2) fron- 

 tier materials. A 15-year research 

 agenda is tentatively being planned, 

 with teams of international scien- 

 tists conducting research at RIKEN's 

 laboratories in specific areas such as 

 chromosomes and bioelectronic ele- 

 ments and devices. ^^ 



"For more information on RIKEN's program, see 

 the Tokyo Office of the U.S. National Science Foun- 

 dation, STA and RIKEN to Launch 'international Fron- 

 tier Research Sx/sletn', Report Memorandum #97, April 

 1986. Note that RIKEN's IFRP is not the same as 

 the yet-to-be implemented Human Frontiers Pro- 

 gram. The Human Frontiers Program has been a 

 highly publicized new research program, and is still 

 in the planning stage. 



15 



