Home > Policy > White Paper, Notice, Announcement > White Paper > Annual Report on the Promotion of Science and Technology 1998 > Introduction

This report concerns policy measures intended to promote science and technology, and has been submitted to the hundred forty-second session of the Diet, pursuant to Article 8 of the Science and Technology Basic Law (Law No. 130), enacted in 1995.

Parts 1 and 2 of this report discuss trends in a wide range of scientific and technical activities to help the reader understand the policy measures implemented to promote science and technology, which are then discussed in Part 3.

Part 1, entitled "An Era of Change", attempts an analysis of the status of various domestic and international issues which must be addressed in order to prepare for change as well as response to these issues from the perspective of science and technology. Part 2 uses various data to compare scientific and technical activities in Japan with those in other selected countries.