Japan to increase foreign transparency in grant program applications

Japan asking for transparency?! LOL!!

I assume they are trying to prevent China sponging off research of sensitive IP? If so beware what happens in the US, the grant recipients just lie about the foriegn relationships (read: money). Ivy League professor on trial for that right now.

What happens if someone applies for the Japanese grant first and then after that applies for extra funding overseas?

Japan will require researchers applying to grant programs to declare if they have received financial support from other countries in a bid to ensure transparency and protect intellectual property, officials said Monday.

Transparency in what ?, and how does whether a researcher has or has not applied for grant abroad lead to

transparency. This is really a joke and taking the public for fools, the onus on transparency is with those awarding the grant , presently, the process is like in a black box and needs to be made transparent.

Japan and transparency? Being transparent also means making things simple and efficient.

This move will just create another job position, it will be more paperwork and pretty much nothing will change. Living in Japan for nearly 30 years and i've heard this so many times already. There were so many promises about making things more transparent, efficient or less paperwork. And it never went more far than looking into it and researching it.

How many Chinese spies are there in Japan?

Well, a lot of the tech that China shows the world has not been invented in China eg high speed trains and surveillance technologies have all been copied-and what is there that we cannot see?

I’ve actually recieved these grants before. In response to sone of the comments, it is an extremely transparent process. You submit a detailed research proposal, it is reviewed by several independent researchers in your field who rank them, then you either get it or you don’t (about 20% of applications are successful).

Once you get it there area mountain of rules and procedures you have to strictly follow with every Yen you spend, all of which is strictly accounted for. If I want to buy a pencil I have to spend about half an hour filling out forms. I have to take training sessions on the proper way to use these funds on a regular basis.

Then all of this information is made public. Your research proposal, your annual reports, Your results and the exact amount you were awarded. When I Google my name, all that stuff is in the first page of results for the world to see.

This change described in the article means they have added another box on the application forms to fill out. My research field is not a sensitive one so this isn’t a big deal for me, but for people researching rocket science or something like that its actually quite important for this info to be disclosed so its probably a good change.

Japan will require researchers applying to grant programs to declare if they have received financial support from other countries in a bid to ensure transparency and protect intellectual property,

There are plenty private foundations abroad that will provide support for international researchers as long their research are in certain field and along with the funding theme. Who will retain the right, still that researcher. Those foundations just need to be notify about the progress in form any paper publication. Everyone can read publication in paper or conference so it's not exclusively become property of other country.

The government last July adopted an innovation strategy in which it expressed concerns that information related to science and technology advances could be lost overseas.

There's nothing could be lost, either they got fund or not those researcher will publish their result in some publication.

They are doing it to find out if a program already receives grant money. If they do, then the Education Ministry will pay less or give no money at all. I see it constantly concerning my kids. The human resources office that covers the workers where my wife works constantly want to see my pay statements. If I receive anything extra that covers my children, then the pay my wife receives for them will be reduced or taken away completely. Since I make more money than my wife, my children are not eligible to be covered under her health insurance. To me its all about cutting costs.