Govt science panel proposes unified budgets with eco-focus

The Yomiuri Shimbun

The government's Council for Science and Technology Policy has formulated a strategy for compiling the fiscal 2011 budget that places priority on environmental energy and medical care.

Among other priorities, the action plan calls for a 70 percent cut in solar power generation costs by 2020 and the establishment of a panel of experts from industry, government and academia to formulate a way to attain that goal.

The action plan sets a target date of 2020 for each of its eight issues--including solar power--in the two sectors. It also provides information about the policies each relevant government organization should pursue to meet those ends.

The goal of the plan is to avoid sectionalism and overlapping policies among government agencies and ministries.

In the medical field, the plan calls for the development of technology to help the elderly and handicapped in their daily lives, as well as creating an epidemiological database that includes genetic codes for about 100,000 people.

About 100 billion yen will be required for the policies this fiscal year.

The council traditionally evaluates budget requests from ministries and agencies at the end of August to compile the budget.

However, this time, the council proposed an overall strategic outline before the budget requests in an attempt to urge the relevant parties to coordinate their budget requests, as it is difficult to do so after the fact.