About Moonshot Research and Development Program

Outline

Japan is now faced with many difficult issues, such as an aging and declining population, extreme natural disasters, and global climate change. These issues should be addressed and resolved by science and technology so that we may bring a better future to our society.
Outside Japan, the European Union, the United States, and China aim to introduce disruptive innovation by announcing their ambitions and setting their goals for resolving difficult social issues in a manner that was unthinkable in the past. These countries accelerate high-risk/high-impact R&D by a much larger scale of investment than Japan does.
Against this background, the new Moonshot Research and Development Program (“the Program”) aims to create disruptive innovations from Japan and promotes challenging R&D based on revolutionary concepts that are not simply the extension of existing technologies, i.e. moonshots.

The government sets ambitious goals and concepts for societal issues that are difficult to tackle but will have profound impact once resolved.
Opens call for domestic and foreign top-class researchers as Project Managers (PM) under the direction of the Program Director (PD) who oversees multiple projects.
Builds a portfolio overlooking the program and promotes challenging R&D without fear of failure.
Reviews a portfolio flexibly by stage-gates and actively encourages utilization of the R&D results.
Establishes the most advanced research support system by utilizing a data management infrastructure.

Portfolio by PD

Basic Program Framework

The CSTI (Cabinet Office) and the Headquarters for Healthcare Policy (Prime Minister's Office of Japan) decide the Moonshot Goals, considering input from external experts.

The Strategy Promotion Council comprised of people from industry, relevant ministries and offices, and researchers, is established to strategically promote R&D, to accelerate the practical use of the R&D results in society, and to achieve effective cooperation and coordination among the relevant ministries/offices and the relevant FAs.

Formulate the R&D concept that defines areas and fields in which R&D should be promoted, cooperating with other relevant ministries to achieve the Moonshot Goals.
Promote related R&D strategically and collectively, cooperating with the CAS or CAO to achieve the Moonshot Goal, based on the discussions in the Strategy Promotion Council.
Give instructions to the related research promotion agencies.

Each research promotion agency implements R&D activities to achieve the Moonshot Goals by:

Appointing PD, and recruit/select PMs.
Establishing organizational structure for R&D activities and implement the related investigations and analysis.
Implementing related R&D strategically and collectively, cooperating with the CAS or CAO and the relevant ministries and offices to achieve the Moonshot Goal, based on the discussions in the Strategy Promotion Council.
Managing the progress of R&D, including middle-term /final evaluations, and other methods.

For more detail, please reffer "Basic approach and Guidelines for Operation and Evaluation" below.