by
(reprinted with permission from Current
Biology, April 1997
Vol 7, Issue 4)
(Issue 6 · posted April 18, 1997; archived May 2, 1997)
For most of my working life, the Japanese scientific community has struggled with less than satisfactory funding. Most of us have had to conduct science in filthy labs with an incredibly limited budget. Many have suggested that this is a major reason that the number of Nobel prizes awarded to Japan is so low. Although this is surely an oversimplification, it is interesting that our only Nobel laureate in chemistry received the prize for theoretical work, which is presumably relatively cheap.
The no-money-nor-equipment era appears to be over. In the past few years we have started to adapt to a flood of money from central government. For this year alone, our six science-related government organizations have set aside Y32 billion (about US$ 300 million) on top of the normal budget. One might think that this is incredibly good news, but in reality this is where the good news ends. For some bizarre reason, most of this extra money is allocated in grants of around Y100 million (US$ 1 million) annually for five years. Thus, we have about 300 members of the Y100 million club. The rest of Japanese science will go on in the old dreary underfunded way. I know one person who never thought his grant application would be successful. So he hadn't decided how he would spend this huge amount of money. What is more, he has to spend the entire grant for the first year in only a few months. Although he needs a couple of ultracentrifuges, the prospect of 100 centrifuges arriving in his lab is not an attractive one. In my own research field, more and more people are buying modern NMR spectrometers, which are, luckily, much more expensive. But even buying the world's most powerful NMR spectrometer at US$ 2.5 million doesn't use up the whole grant. Yet the choice is to use the money, or to lose it. This is not merely a matter of the grant system, but is rooted in the general question of how decisions are made in Japan. It all started in the Meiji era, 100 years ago. During the Meiji revolution, our brightest graduates were recruited and given the task of introducing Western scientific advances to Japanese science. They were very successful; many technologies invented outside Japan are now the basis of industries dominated by Japanese companies.
But the attitudes from these years are quite at odds with the systems now required to foster new scientific developments. Our education, at all levels, still largely relies on rote learning, just as it did 100 years ago. This is fine for memorizing other people's ideas (as required during the early Meiji period), but not for creative scientific thought. Nevertheless, each generation of bureaucrats selects successors who are like them. The people who make the funding decisions think that rote learning is all you need. The training of the people responsible for handing out money is inappropriate enough, but the systems of administration are astounding. The Japanese word for bureaucrats (Kanryo) is a collective noun, and Kanryo only make collective decisions; no single person takes responsibility for anything. (It has to be admitted, however, that the entire Japanese society is virtually run by Kanryo.) Whenever Kanryo have to make an important decision, they convene a committee of Gakushiki keiken sha (those having an incredibly deep understanding of everything). Naturally, the Kanryo provide the background information and set the agenda, so all the committee can do is provide a rubber stamp.
Who chooses the Gakushiki keiken sha, and how are they chosen? Nobody knows. (All we know is that 10% of them must be female, regardless of their area of expertise.) But this group is used to validate almost all of the major decisions made in our society, sometimes in ridiculous ways. I recently noticed a member of the scientific committee was also in a think-tank to determine where the new parliament buildings should be built. Obviously, members of the Gakushiki keiken sha really do understand everything. The science and technology basic plan, prepared and submitted by the Council of Science and Technology, Japan's highest scientific organization, was approved on July 2, 1996. As a result, the government will spend the incredible figure of Y17 trillion over five years to advance science and technology. But it is hard to predict what will come out of this; a flood of money will not lead to a torrent of scientific excellence.
Europe and the US have developed sophisticated methods of peer-review, and their science budgets yield far more scientific discoveries per dollar than does Japan's. I do not even know how seriously central government is deliberating the present and future of science in Japan - presumably with the advice of committees organized by Kanryo and attended by a group of Gakushiki keiken sha. We need fundamental changes in the way that grants are tendered and assessed before we can compete with other nations.
Unfortunately, restructuring does not seem to be a priority.
My fears were partially confirmed when a high-ranking official told me that the money being spent now is essentially for the activation of the Japanese economy. Whatever the advantages of a large supply of money, here, it is obviously not the solution to the problem.