NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
TOKYO REGIONAL OFFICE

September 11, 2003

The National Science Foundation's Tokyo Regional Office periodically reports on developments in Japan that are related to the Foundation's mission.  It also provides occasional reports on developments in other East Asian countries.

Tokyo Office Report Memoranda are intended to provide information for the use of NSF program officers and policy makers; they are not statements of NSF policy.

Based on the budget requests for JFY2004 submitted to date by the ministries/agencies in Japan with the deadline of August 30, 2003, MEXT (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology) has compiled a quick summary of the S&T-related budget requests and made it public. The total amount of the S&T-related budget requests was Yen 3,996.8 billion (ca. $34.5 billion), an increase of 11.3 percent over the previous year. This is a quick compilation of the requested budgets before coordination and adjustment. The requested projects for JFY2004 will be reviewed and ranked by CSTP (Council for Science and Technology Policy). The ratings will then be forwarded to the Ministry of Finance which will make the final budget decision by the end of December 2003. This office will report the final figures when they are announced, together with the by-field budgets.

The following tables show a quick summary of the S&T-related budgets by nature of budget for JFY2003 and JFY2004, followed by quick summaries of the S&T-related budgets by ministry/agency for JFY2004 and JFY2003. For the reason cited above, the figures may change.

To be noted in Table 1 is the drastic decrease in the amount for the “Special Account.” The abolishment of the “Special Account for National Schools” occurred in accordance with the national universities’ shift to independent university corporations. The “Special Account for National Schools” is an account comprising in major portion the national universities’ tuition and income gained at the national university-affiliated hospitals. As any income obtained at each national university corporation becomes its own income as of April 2004, the national university corporations will no longer need to transfer this income to the central government. Ultimately, as a consequence, the “Special Account for National Schools” will no longer exist. Instead, from April 2004 each national university corporation will request from the central government a budget that reflects the income they will have directly received.

In concrete terms, Yen 690.4 billion in Table 1 is the S&T-related budget amount in “Special Account” which does not include “Special Account for Schools.” Table 2 explains this mechanism in detail. In Table 1, Yen 1,050.5 billion for the “National University Corporations” represents the amount to be budgeted to national university corporations from the central government, and it is indicated in parentheses in the column for MEXT in Table 2. Thus, the budget for a national university corporation will be the total of their own income and the funds from the central government.

Note:

- The separate line items may not add up to the total due to rounding errors.

- The Public R&D Investment mentioned in the Second Basic Plan is the total of the central government S&T-related funds and local government S&T-related funds.

Note:

The separate line items may not add up to the total due to rounding errors.

Note:

The separate line items may not add up to the total due to rounding errors.

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