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Council for Science and Technology Policy
Wednesday, November 27, 2013
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held the ninth meeting of the Council for Science and Technology Policy in 2013 (115th in total) at the Prime Minister's Office.
During the meeting, discussion took place on the "new system of research and development entities for the growth strategy," "a policy for formulating science and technology-related budgets for FY2014," and "Innovative Research and Development Promotion Program (ImPACT)." The meeting concluded with a presentation on "Recent Science and Technology Trends: Creating Innovative Materials from 'Stones' - Iron-based Superconductor, Transparent Semiconductor IGZO, and Ammonia Synthesis Catalyst -."
The Prime Minister said in his closing remarks,
"ImPACT is a new initiative that supports new high risk and high impact programs, by boldly leaving the innovative process to the initiative of on-site personnel. We will work to get this National Emphasis Program off to a strong start.
Today, we have decided on a basic policy for resolutely performing the task of prioritizing and aggregating measures, as we prepare to formulate the FY2014 science and technology budget. This policy will be fully reflected in next fiscal year's budget formulation process and will be applied to help create a focused budget.
Over the course of today's discussion, I believe we agreed to strive to create world-leading research and development agencies. I would like to ask relevant Cabinet members to coordinate the details of the system amongst themselves, so that firm guidelines may be set out at the end of the year.
Finally, 'technology' is the cornerstone of the 'proactive diplomatic strategy on global warming' unveiled at COP19 this month. The New Low Carbon Technology Plan decided at the previous meeting will be crucial for the realization of this strategy. To ensure that this plan is executed, I would like to ask the Council for Science and Technology Policy to steadfastly follow up on its progress."