PART II Recent Trends and Developments in Government Policies in Education, Science and Culture
Chapter 6. Promoting Scientific Research
Section 3. Training and Recruiting Young Researchers
The training and recruitment of able researchers is vital to the advancement of scientific research. The Ministry of Education, Science and Culture is working to train and recruit promising, creative young researchers who have the potential to lead Japanese scientific research in the future by implementing the Fellowships for Japanese Scientists of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. This full-scale fellowship system provides doctoral candidates and people who have completed doctorate courses with grants for research over specific periods. It also provides research funds (grants-in-aid for scientific research). The purpose of the program is to give researchers an opportunity to concentrate on independent research based on their own ideas, in locations of their own choosing. Since the establishment of the program, the number of fellowships granted has increased substantially. In addition, acceptance requirements have been broadened and amounts of grants increased. In fiscal 1994 the total number of fellows reached 2,100 (
Tables II.6.4,
II.6.5).
Other programs include Postdoctoral Fellowships for Research Abroad, which sends able young researchers to universities and scientific research institutions overseas, and Postdoctoral Fellowships for Foreign Researchers, which bring young researchers from other countries to Japan. In addition to these regular fellowship programs, the Ministry is implementing Postdoctoral Fellowships in Cancer Research and Fellowships for Younger Scientists for Participation in the New Program for the Development of Science (see
section 6, subsection 10).
