PROGRAM: 2-9

Title:

CHALLENGES FOR IMPLEMENTING OPEN SCIENCE POLICY IN JAPAN INCLUDING FUTURE EARTH

Abstract:

Open Science Policy in Japan has been developed and implemented with revolution of recent scholarly communication. It started from Open Access recommendation by Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST, funding agency) in 2013, discussion and report by the Cabinet Office (2015) to the description in the 5th Science and Technology Basic Plan (2016). Science Council of Japan (2016) also published a report and EU and Japan lead the working party for Open Science in the G7 Science and Technology Minister Meeting (2016).

There have been already some activities related to Open Science and there are various obstacles to promote Open Science “in general.” Reviewing current implementation of Open Science Policy in Japan mainly focusing on Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) through, it mainly focuses on Open Research Data. With recognition of the importance of domain-based or project-based implementation, requiring Data Management Plan (DMP) for each research project would be effective before setting any mandate for Open Science.

In 2017, Japan Society for Promoting Science released Open Access policy (JSPS) and JST launched Open Science policy. Both of them have been carefully watching and monitoring researchers’ attitude in Japan to promote Open Science with adequate speed. With consideration of global trends, Japan still has to advocate Open Science as a beneficial issue for researchers, administrators and citizens.

Japan also has to support communities who wish to exploit it earlier since it would be a good chance to re-invent new mode of Science or create a new paradigm of Research which Asian countries would commit to proactively. Developing Research Data Management Platform like National Institute of Informatics (NII) with pilot universities, potentially expanding Japan’s over 700 institutional repositories, would get various insights toward a future of Open Science infrastructure driven by Open Research Data.

On the other hand, multi-stakeholder involvement with various sectors is also crucial to implement Open Science. With some success by committing to Open Science Research Agenda Setting such as Future Earth, SDGs and related activities, there is still a gap among stakeholders and it is difficult especially how to connect societal visions to each agenda of science, technology and industry development with practical manners or even how to get researchers to recognize its importance.

Currently each policy has to encourage each stakeholders to exploit potential of Open Science and, beyond that, it also has to seek any chance to integrate them and design a future framework of Science Technology and Industry with possibly a new style of stakeholder engagements, which is ideally associated with the vision of Open Science infrastructure driven by Open Research Data.