Eyes on the prize

Japan’s Council for Science and Technology has adopted a 5-year plan to boost
public spending on scientific research by more than 40 per cent, to a total of 1
per cent of GDP. Until now, Japan has relied heavily on the private sector,
which the council believes has stifled creative research. One of the council’s
goals is to increase the number of Japanese winners of Nobel prizes in science
from 6 to 30 over the next 50 years. The plan also calls for the creation of
technology-transfer companies to exploit the output of public research labs.