To all the academic societies and federations that endorsed the request for increased Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research,
Thank you very much for your continued support of the campaign to increase Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (KAKENHI).
Previously, we reported to you about the submission of a petition to Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Masahito Moriyama on Friday, September 6 of last year, and this time we are reporting on the subsequent progress.
As you know, an election was held, a new government took office, and the supplementary and initial budgets have been finalized.
Regarding the FY2024 supplementary budget, the request for 5.2 billion yen for Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (KAKENHI) was approved.
https://www.mext.go.jp/content/20241129-ope_dev02-000031627_2.pdf
This is page 30 of the material.
Meanwhile, on December 1st, I also had the opportunity to meet with the Director-General of the Research Promotion Bureau at the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). Following that, the initial budget proposal for FY 2025 was approved by the Cabinet.
Regarding Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research, which had remained flat at 237.7 billion yen for three years, thanks to the efforts of MEXT officials, it was increased by 200 million yen.
You might think it's only 200 million yen, but given the tight ceiling limits, the fact that it went up even a little is, I think, commendable.
https://www.mext.go.jp/content/20241225-ope_dev02-000037774_1.pdf
This is page 76 of the document.
According to the Ministry of Education, this means that regarding the prioritized allocation for "Basic Research ABC" for which rough estimates had been requested, it has become possible to implement prioritized research funding allocations for approximately 5% of newly selected projects (about 800 projects). The fulfillment rate will be improved for the aforementioned projects.
Moving forward, we would like to continue our efforts toward increasing the initial budget for FY2008. Therefore, as one happy piece of news, since demands from society are also important, we have been reaching out to Keidanren since last year, and as attached ( https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/zxx83j8l2phlhgw91ytcs/.pdf?rlkey=b3lk5zhrcavzhdra3ygr92gl8&st=h2fj5xdo&dl=0 As stated in the December 4 article by ), the phrase "early doubling of Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (KAKENHI)" was included in the "Policy Recommendations for 2024 (Future Design 2040)." Using this strong support from the business community as a further basis, we first plan to lobby the Ministry of Finance once again. In addition, since we need to gain the endorsement of politicians, we intend to set up meetings to explain our cause and steadily gather supporters among members of the National Diet. Furthermore, we plan to continue appealing to CSTI to ensure the importance of basic science is written into the "7th Science, Technology and Innovation Basic Plan."
That is all for my report at this time.
Thank you once again for your support and cooperation with this request.
Please also share the above information with the academic society you belong to. Thank you for your continued cooperation.
Kazushige Tosihara, Representative of the Japan Consortium for the Life Sciences
Yukiko Gotoh, Chair of the KAKENHI Human Resource Development Committee
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Federation of Japanese Biological Scientific Societies
113-0033
5th Floor, Daigaku Tsushin Kyoiku Building, 2-27-16 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo
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TEL: 03-3816-0738 FAX: 03-3816-0766
Email: seikaren@nacos.com
URL: https://seikaren.org/
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