The Key Points of Research and Development: A New Evaluation Method and Recommendations Toward Efficiency

ABSTRACT

In recent years, technological advancement has had an increasing influence on the direction of national economies and societies. For this reason, R&D activities conducted or supported by the national government have gained importance in Japan as well. As a result, the Science and Technology Basic Law was enacted, and the size of R&D budgets has been increased.

The public is not interested in merely investing large amounts of money in R&D projects. More importantly, the public desires national R&D projects that will solve social and economic problems faced by average citizens, and projects that will strengthen national R&D capabilities. Thus, it is important that the government first establish strategic goals for science and technology, and that in order to attain these goals, a suitable number of appropriate R&D projects are established alongside the proper allocation of funds and human resources. Moreover, it is critical that these projects are monitored via performance evaluations, and that they are efficiently operated and revised if necessary.

Of particular importance is the appropriate evaluation of these projects, and that the results of such evaluations are reflected accurately in the national government's R&D strategies. Japan still lacks experience in such evaluations, and the target of evaluations remains research institutes and individual projects; as such, there are no evaluations that cover the national government's R&D strategies as a whole. Evaluations of individual projects alone are not sufficient; unless evaluations are conducted with the overall project in mind, it is difficult to determine whether or not national R&D activities as a whole are being pursued in a proper manner.

Employing the former MITI's R&D projects as a model, this report develops a new method for evaluating national R&D activities. It is predicted that use of this proposed method will lead to more strategic and efficient national R&D activities.

Introduction