Abstract
The Science and Technology Policy Plan, approved by the Cabinet in July 1996, is an epoch-making item in the history of Japan's science and technology policy. The plan specifies that the total national R&D expenditure for the fiscal 1996-2000 will be about 17 trillion yen. The author tries to discern the trend of and tasks for Japanese science and technology policy by comparing the Policy Plan with 13 recent reports. The analysis showed that the Policy Plan included most issues presented in other reports and may be regarded as the consummation of various proposals since mid-1980s, which were triggered by criticisms of Japan's "free-riding" on basic research in other countries and unpopularity of science and technology among Japanese youth. The basic idea of the Policy Plan is to activate the R&D in the country by increasing R&D resources input and introducing more competitive platform for R&D institutions. A problem is that the Policy Plan is based on independent activities of research institutions and governmental agencies, which will end up in budget mongering without a nationally unified system of strategic planning and implementation of science and technology policy. The present circumstances also require to study policies other than the "supply-side" policy advanced in the Policy Plan.
