Top �� What's up around the Prime Minister �� November, 2002

Twenty-Second Meeting of the Council for Science and Technology Policy Monday, November 11, 2002 The twenty-second meeting of the Council for Science and Technology Policy was held at the Prime Minister's Official Residence. Mr. Masatoshi Koshiba and Mr. Koichi Tanaka, who have been selected to receive Nobel Prizes this year, attended the meeting and provided explanations of their research and their thought on promotion of science and technology. Mr. Koshiba stated, "It is indeed important to advance science and technology, but I would like to remind you all not to forget the promotion of basic science as well."�@Mr. Tanaka stated, "The success of my research was due to the good teamwork that we had. Teamwork is one of the good things about Japan. However the demerit system is not good. It is important to praise people and focus on the merit system." In addition to this, the meeting received a report that by the beginning of December work will be completed on decoding the rice genome through an international cooperation project in which Japan is playing a central role.