6th Basic Plan: University conditions worsen despite record investment — NISTEP survey

Under the 6th Science, Technology, and Innovation Basic Plan, the Japanese government set an investment goal of approximately 30 trillion yen and poured roughly 43.6 trillion yen into R&D over five years. Despite this, the environment surrounding universities is deteriorating. The National Institute of Science and Technology Policy (NISTEP) conducts a fixed-point survey, i.e., an annual questionnaire with the same participants to monitor conditions during the Basic Plan period. NISTEP has released the latest survey results.

Over the past five years, a growing number of researchers have expressed a stark recognition that research resources, academic/basic research, and government research fund management have worsened. It has become clear that existing fundamental expenses and research grants are insufficient to offset the impacts of the weak yen and soaring prices.

Director Masatsura Igami of NISTEP, stated, "During the 7th Basic Plan, we must shift away from the research system of the deflationary era and restructure it to respond to the era of inflation." The fixed-point survey is a continuous study of frontline researchers and experts to track how the research environment changes under the government's Basic Plan.

The fixed-point survey 2025 was conducted from September 2025 to January 2026, with a response rate of 84.8% (1,826 respondents). This marks the fifth and final survey of the 6th Basic Plan period. One area that remained unchanged over the five years was the "number of doctoral students with desirable abilities," which received the lowest overall rating as "significantly insufficient."

However, in Group 1 (Tohoku University, the University of Tokyo, Kyoto University, the University of Osaka), the index is relatively higher, and signs of improvement are becoming visible. The actual number of students entering doctoral programs is also increasing.

On the other hand, regarding "environmental preparation for entering doctoral programs" and "environmental preparation for diversifying career paths for PhD holders," improvements have been made at universities selected for SPRING and the Fostering Researchers in Emerging AI Program, showing that the policies are having an effect.

Items that dropped significantly over these five years include: "securing fundamental expenses," "diversity of basic research," "securing research funds for capable mid-career and senior researchers," "ease of using publicly solicited government research funds," "state of research foundations," "securing competitive funds," "level of research facilities and equipment," and "functions according to the roles of funding agencies."

For research foundations, fundamental expenses, and competitive funds, the index for the entire group of university researchers in natural sciences dropped significantly. The reasons given were that fundamental expenses are insufficient and are on a practical downward trend due to the weak yen and the rising costs of labor, utilities, and prices.

In this survey, the worsening management of university hospitals was also added, showing that changes in social conditions are having a large impact on research sites. Similarly, for items like research facilities and equipment, rising prices have made it impossible to update them. Additionally, the index for items related to academic and basic research also dropped.

In addition to the practical decrease in research funds due to rising prices, opinions were expressed that research funds are biased toward specific fields and that the trend is moving toward not allowing long-term basic research.

What is needed to solve these problems?

The top-ranked proposal for mitigation was the additional allocation of fundamental expenses linked to rising prices, followed by: 2nd, additional allocation of competitive research funds linked to rising prices; 3rd, additional support for travel expenses; 4th, additional support for utility, facility, and equipment maintenance costs; and 5th, additional support for costs related to publishing papers and literature surveys. All of these aim to enhance financial support. However, increasing the amount of each individual research grant forces a decrease in the number of projects selected, so the challenge is how to increase the total funding for universities.

Regarding the item asking if Japan's basic research results are sufficiently connected to innovation, 77% responded that they are not. Not only universities but also industry showed the same recognition. Both recognize that the most important initiative is for universities to continuously conduct basic research.

Many opinions, especially from companies, asked universities to clarify basic principles that cannot be tackled within a company's time span, and to perform challenging research that creates something from zero. The most common opinion on what is necessary to enhance basic research was "securing research time." To achieve this, it is recognized that having to perform non-research obligations, such as increased university administration and teaching activity and entrance exam-related work, is a major point of difference from overseas universities.

In particular, overseas universities have a wealth of highly skilled technical and research support staff, and lab managers handle the operation of laboratories. This makes the environment very different, as researchers can focus on their research.

To improve these points, the entire university system needs a major overhaul. Furthermore, looking at just this past year, while Group 1 saw an increase in evaluation for 21 items, Group 2 (Okayama University, Kanazawa University, Kyushu University, Kobe University, Chiba University, the University of Tsukuba, former Tokyo Medical and Dental University, former Tokyo Institute of Technology, Nagoya University, Hiroshima University, Hokkaido University, Keio University, Nihon University, Waseda University) saw a decrease in 23 items. Many of the items related to the research environment dropped, suggesting that they were most heavily affected by rising prices.

Senior Research Fellow Akiyoshi Murakami said, "Universities selected for J-PEAKS are holding firm, while those in Group 2 that were not selected have dropped significantly."