Government son for Japan's commercial success is government support for industrial For about the past five years, Japan's One urgent remedy suggested is to research. Not so, says the report. science and technology policy has improve machine translation of Jap- Only 1.2% of government research money goes to industry, compared been moving forward, step by step, anese into English. on a path the Japanese like to call Japan must also inject into its lab- with 33% the U.S. government "globalization." The term implies oratories the style and social ambi- spends. Thus, Japan's industrial sucachieving a better match with scien- ance that generate excitement, com- cess is a result of the "strenuous eftists of the western world (the U.S. petition, and free exchange of ideas. forts of these corporations themand Europe) and at the same time And fourth, it must improve habita- selves." Several government labs, calling some of the important policy tions and facilities to levels that will however, do research of direct indusshots. A white paper just issued by attract more foreign researchers. The trial importance. Japan's dominant technical agency, paper reports steady progress in this Data indicative of global high-tech the Science & Technology Agency fourth area. trends show up in STA's numbers on (STA), assesses Japan's progress in Establishing common rules and trade in know-how and in products. this area. Its consensus: mixed re- values in the effort to build a sustain- The report says the scale of trade in sults so far, but moving ahead. able future through technology is technology (defined as patent licensSTA sees for Japan a big role in progressing more slowly because of es, know-how transfer, and technical solving four major global prob- international politics and economics. training) doubled between 1981 and lems—resource shortages, capital But the challenges involve solving 1989. But Japan's trade balance in scarcity, environmental degradation, intellectual property rights conflicts that sector remained in a deficit. In and human squalor. The problems between Japanese and foreign re- high-tech product trade, Japan's balof global limits were well recog- searchers (infringement suits are ance first exceeded the U.S. in 1986 nized in the 1970s, largely ignored common), and working out better and the gap has widened since then. in the get-all-you-can eighties, and ways of cooperating with western Japan is still sending out far more have returned, STA believes, with a countries on megascience projects. researchers to the West than move in vengeance in the nineties. The Japanese think the West un- the opposite direction. Almost 2000 The paper, which draws on data derestimates Japanese prowess in foreigners went to Japan's governfrom surveys of Japanese scientists fundamental research. "It would be ment and university labs in 1989; the and engineers and of advanced-tech- very helpful," says the paper, "if Ja- country sent out 10,461. Among stunology industry leaders, says all the pan, Europe, and the U.S. would con- dents, more than half who went to industrialized countries have to get duct a joint survey on their respec- Japan studied engineering. In addiserious and cooperate in finding tive levels of science and technology. tion, a "steady increase" in the numhigh-tech solutions to these prob- This would allow participating coun- ber of researchers from private corlems. It says the era of bilateral sci- tries to have a common and objective porations entered Japan's two major ence and technology cooperation is understanding of the present situa- international research efforts: the huover. Because these problems are so tion and avoid unnecessary conflict." man frontier science program (basic huge and expensive, it is now time to The Japanese are sticklers for fig- biology) and the intelligent manufacemphasize multilateral cooperation. ures and data and the 49-page re- turing systems program. One of the biggest changes is JaBut for Japan to become an effec- port—really an English-language tive, trusted cooperator, the docu- summary—should satisfy similar pan's corporate research presence in ment says it must do two big jobs. sticklers from the West. It contains Europe and the U.S. Between 1970 First, it must become a "well accept- numbers for the trade balance in and 1984, Japan set up 26 such faciled member" of the international re- technological products and know- ities in the U.S. and 11 in Western search community by making how, figures for Japanese studying Europe. Between 1985 and 1991, the changes within its infrastructure. in Europe and the U.S., and trends respective numbers were 75 and 43. Second, it must seek among the of westerners going to Japan to do By 1996, the report notes, most Japaleading countries "common rules research. It lists in a bar graph the nese companies will employ beand values" in ensuring that science problems foreign-affiliated compa- tween 20 and 100 researchers in and technology shape a sustainable nies say they face in carrying out re- overseas labs. Ten will employ 500 future. search activities in Japan (attracting or more. In Japan itself, Japanese To make its voice heard, Japan qualified researchers leads the list companies reported they expect up must, according to the document, do for almost half, but about half see it to 2% of their research work force four things. It must raise the spend- as a minor problem). The smallest will be foreign. The white paper also points out ing level of public-sector research problem of all, interestingly, was (80% of Japan's research is done by government red tape. The paper ac- that R&D spending by the Japanese industry). Second, because hardly knowledges a wide gap in basic re- government has remained steady any Japanese research is published search in Japan versus the U.S., but since 1984 at just under $15.5 billion, or cited in western journals, it must it says Japan has reached par with while private-sector investment has do a much better job of letting the Europe in the technologies impor- risen by about $26.9 billion to the fiscal 1989 figure of $68.5 billion. western scientific world know about tant for economic growth. Wil Lepkowski A western myth has it that the reathe quality of Japanese research.
Japan cites progress in globalization plans
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October 28, 1991 C&EN
