

A world leader in science and technology, with a fascinating and rich culture, Japan at last seems to be recovering from deep recession. For the world's third largest economy, a thriving R&D landscape based on excellent academic research seems more important than ever before. For a nation poor of mineral resources, intellectual resources play a vital role.
The Japanese government's current 5-year, ?250 billion ($277 billion) Plan for Science and Technology focuses public R&D spending on four priority areas--life sciences, information technology, environmental sciences, and nanotechnology and materials sciences. In the field of proteomics alone, a budget of around ?72 million ($80 million) is earmarked by the Japanese ministry of research for the study of the interactions of 30,000 human proteins.
There seem to be plenty of good reasons for young Western researchers to go east and spend some time in the land of the rising sun. And indeed more than money is needed if Japan is to remain a research leader. The reform-minded government of Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi aims to restructure Japan's research and development systems, in an attempt both to funnel basic research into new industrial products and to attract top international talent. The recently established Centers of Excellence (COE) Program, also known as the Toyama Plan, is an example of one such initiative. It vastly increases the number of symposia held in Japan and provides a new source of financial support to Japanese postgraduate students.
Much more could be said here, but we prefer to let the young scientists who have experienced research in Japan speak for themselves. In this month's feature you can hear from Western participants in exchange programs and from Japanese scientists that have joined Western research groups. Here too you'll find profiles of funding programs and organizations and lots of practical tips to help you prepare your own research visit to Japan.
Interested? Keep reading the new feature articles posted on this page throughout the whole month of September.
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Links:
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