Inquiry on “State of Policy for Information and Communications Technology toward Creation of Innovation” to the Information and Communications Council

1.Reasons for submission of the inquiry

  Currently, it is strongly required to translate achievements obtained by R&D, etc. into socioeconomic reform (innovation). The entire government is working hard to establish a new system to realize it.
  Under these circumstances, the ICT industry accounts for about 10% of the total amount of nominal domestic production of all industries and is closely linked to all industries. It is important for the entire country to ensure and maintain information and communications technology.
  Therefore, it is required to realize the creation of innovation through prioritized investment of public budget and human resources for the purpose of concentrating R&D abilities of the public and private sectors, ascertain technical fields in which Japan should display its strength and surely translating them to social implementation. At the same time, it should be through construction of mechanism to accelerate the concentration of the abilities of the entire country for reinforcement of academic-industrial alliance and utilization of outside funds and human resources.
  Based on these points, an inquiry on the State of the Policy for Information and Communication Technology toward Creation of Innovation” including specific draft pilot projects was submitted to the Information and Communications Council with an eye to 2020.
   

2.Matters which need to be included in the report

  (1) Technical fields in which Japan should display its strength by mobilizing the R&D capability of the public and private sectors
  (2) Necessary efforts and an organization for making those efforts in order to translate R&D achievements into the creation of innovation
  (3) Specific draft pilot projects based on the above-mentioned points
  (4) Other necessary matters
   

3.Period by which the report is issued

  The report will be issued by July 2014 (First report will be issued by July 2013)
 

4.System for deliberation

  It was decided at the Information and Communications Council held on January 18, 2013 that this inquiry is referred to the Information and Communications Policy Committee and deliberated by this Committee.
  In addition, the Committee held on January 18, 2013 started deliberations, and it was decided to newly establish the “Innovation Creation Subcommittee (Chief investigator: Hideyuki Tokuda, Dean and Professor, Graduate School of Media and Governance, Keio University) with a view to investigating and considering this case.