The effectiveness of Japanese public funding to generate emerging topics in life science and medicine

Abstract

Understanding the effectiveness of public funds to generate emerging topics will assist policy makers in promoting innovation. In the present study, we aim to clarify the effectiveness of grants to generate emerging topics in life sciences and medicine since 1991 with regard to Japanese researcher productivity and grants from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. To clarify how large grant amounts and which categories are more effective in generating emerging topics from both the PI and investment perspectives, we analyzed awarded PI publications containing emerging keywords (EKs; the elements of emerging topics) before and after funding. Our results demonstrated that, in terms of grant amounts, while PIs tended to generate more EKs with larger grants, the most effective investment from the perspective of investor side was found in the smallest amount range for each PI (less than 5 million JPY /year). Second, in terms of grant categories, we found that grant categories providing smaller amounts for diverse researchers without excellent past performance records were more effective from the investment perspective to generate EK. Our results suggest that offering smaller, widely dispersed grants rather than large, concentrated grants is more effective in promoting the generation of emerging topics in life science and medicine.

Overstaying our welcome: On the rise of women's seniority in the academy

“…Fewer women at the top tiers of the academy results in reduced advocacy for structural change of institutional policies and norms. Funding is being increasingly siloed into fewer but larger multi‐institutional grants that are accessible to fewer (top tier) researchers across North America, Asia, and Europe (Canada Research Coordinating Committee, 2021; Ohniwa et al, 2023; Schiermeier, 2020). This pressures universities to ‘put their best foot forward’ in order to increase success rates.…”