Home > Policy > White Paper, Notice, Announcement > White Paper > Annual Report on the Promotion of Science and Technology 1999 > Part1 Chapter3 Section4

Science and technology in Japan facilitates economic and social development, and furthers the welfare of the people. With the maturation of the nation's socioeconomy and the coming of such trends as globalization, Japan now faces new vital issues, including problems global in scale. Advancements in science and technology now provide a vast horizon of potential solutions to these and other problems. Goals that are more clearly defined are now needed to solve today's problems and to look into the future to determine what science and technology should strive to do.

Doing so entails determining and drawing upon the needs to which science and technology must respond; setting plain goals as to what science and technology should do; defining vital R&D areas for achieving those goals, and initiating the priority investment of R&D resources with the objective of using science and technology to contribute to responses to national and global problems. At the same time, intellectual assets must be enriched through the active promotion of basic research, achievements in which can sometimes lead to entirely new systems of technology.

Furthermore, with the interrelation of science and technology to people and society growing ever deeper, those involved in science and technology must not forget to assure harmony with people and society.

Such efforts must be deployed in a comprehensive and strategic manner in order for Japan's science and technology to respond to national and societal needs and to raise its own levels. As part of the new structure of science and technology administration that will result from administrative reform, the new Council for Arts, Science and Technology, which is to be established in the Cabinet Office, will deliberate basic policies for the comprehensive and systematic promotion of science and technology, while the Ministry of Education and Science will draft and promote R&D-related plans and coordinate the various administrative agencies involved in science and technology. This new structure of science and technology administration must concretize these and other comprehensive and strategic efforts.