The Science Council of Japan (SCJ) was founded in 1949 as Japan’s national academy. Despite being a state institution, it operates independently of the government and maintains autonomy in its administration and its activities.
Its working principles were a result of the bitter experience of wartime Japan when scientists had been mobilized for military purposes. Against this historical background, the SCJ was established “under the consensus of the entire scientific community, with the mission to contribute to the peaceful reconstruction of Japan, the welfare of human society, and to academic progress, in coordination with the global academic communities”, as the preamble of the current Act on the SCJ reads. The SCJ’s duties are: to deliberate important issues concerning science and to help to implement them; to promote and to improve the efficiency of coordination of scientific research; to respond to governmental consultation on academic policies and important policies that require special examination by expert scientists; and to provide scientific recommendations and suggestions to the Japanese government and society.
Ever since its inception the SCJ has played an active role, for example, by issuing hundreds of reports and recommendations to the public. It consists of 210 scientists, each serving a six-year term, and encompasses all academic fields. Faithful to its sobriquet, “the Scientists’ Parliament”, the members were initially elected by Japanese scientists, until reforms were made in the 1980s and 2000s upon the government’s initiative, and a co-optation system was introduced. Thereby, current members nominate the next members, as most national academies do. While it is the Prime Minister who appoints the members, this procedure was just a formality, comparable to the British monarch’s appointment of the British Prime Minister upon nomination by Parliament. This consensus was upheld by all Japanese governments until the Japanese Prime Minister in 2020/2021, Mr. Yoshihide Suga, quite unlawfully broke it and refused to appoint the new candidates that had been nominated by the SCJ in 2020.
Recently, a new bill was introduced that would totally change the SCJ’s nature and subordinate it altogether to the government. Japan’s ruling coalition, formed by the centre-right Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and Komeito, a Buddhist conservative Party, submitted a new Act on the SCJ on March 7, 2025, and it was passed on June 11. Its main objective: the “incorporation”, which means in the Japanese context the transformation of the SCJ into a special corporation. One should think that a corporation grants greater managerial independence than other organizational forms. However, the bill introduces numerous surveillance mechanisms enabling government intervention and control, justified by “accountability to taxpayers.” It aims to deprive the SCJ of its independence and autonomy and to turn it into an agency subject to governmental control.
The SCJ’s Executive Committee has emphasized five requirements indispensable for a national academy: the status as an institution representing the country academically; granting public qualifications for that purpose; a stable financial base through national financial expenditure; independence from the government in terms of activities; and autonomy and independence in membership selection. As a reaction to the bill, the SCJ’s General Assembly passed a resolution and issued a statement, expressing serious concerns and demanding substantial amendments from the Legislature.
Background to the introduction of the bill
But the present crisis cannot be understood without the conflict in 2020 and Prime Minister Suga’s refusal to appoint the nominated new candidates, in violation of the consensus of the Act. When Akahata, the Communist Party’s daily newspaper, broke the news, hundreds of academic associations and societies, as well as numerous civil society organizations, protested and issued statements asking Mr. Suga to withdraw his decision and to explain his refusal. The International Science Council supported them and sent an official letter expressing concern to the SCJ president. Mr. Suga and his successors, however, continued to refuse to provide any explanations on the grounds that it was “a personnel matter”.
Meanwhile, the ruling party, the LDP, changed the subject as if the SCJ’s organizational form had been the issue and had caused the incident. In December 2020, a task force within the LDP published a proposal that suggested the SCJ’s transformation into a corporation to allegedly ensure its independence from the government. But when the government set about to revise the Act on the SCJ in December 2022, the SCJ started fighting back. Its General Assembly demanded the government to suspend the revision and to establish a forum for open consultation in order to review the entire Japanese academic system comprehensively and fundamentally (see here and here). As a result, the government gave up on the bill, for the time being.
It did not, however, abandon its plan to reorganize the SCJ. In August 2023, it established an “Advisory Panel” on the role of the SCJ in the Cabinet Office, the executive office under the Prime Minister that supports him and the other ministers. The panel consisted of representatives from pro-government academic circles, from the Cabinet Office, from the business community, and some SCJ ex-members, and others. The SCJ president was asked to attend, but not as an official member. The panel released an interim report on December 21, 2023, which proposed that the SCJ should cease to be a state institution and become an organization with a separate legal personality. Based on this report, the State Minister for Special Missions declared, on December 22, 2023, that it was the government’s policy to incorporate the SCJ.
Evaluating the panel’s interim report and the Minister’s decision, the SCJ General Assembly issued a statement on April 23, 2024 expressing concern about the incorporation of the SCJ. Former SCJ presidents, as well as dozens of academic societies and associations, issued a statement demanding that the government cancel the submission of the bill. However, the government did not withdraw the decision, and the bill was finally submitted to the Legislature in March 2025.
Suspected purposes of the bill– Shadow of the military-industrial complex
Why does the Japanese government insist in making the SCJ a corporation? The official explanation is still to “strengthen the independence of the SCJ”. However, many suspect that the real, hidden aim of the bill is to help and to promote the military-industrial complex in Japan.
The Japanese government has been pursuing, for some decades, a “science, technology, and innovation policy” (STI) aimed at economic growth. The main organization to promote this policy is the Council for Science, Technology and Innovation (CSTI), an agency in the Cabinet Office chaired by the Prime Minister. It’s clear that SCJ has been pushed further and further to the sidelines. However, while the SCJ no longer has real power to set the STI policy, it still has a strong influence on Japanese scientists’ code of conduct. Also, its recommendations to the government and its scientific proposals to the public still have a social impact. The government expects the SCJ to cooperate with or to implement the STI policy, while not meddling with its contents. Therefore, in the eyes of the government it is indispensable that its influence and that of industry and business over the SCJ should be enhanced, to make science contribute more to what is euphemistically called “innovation”. Not only the government, also the business community has for a long time demanded the incorporation of the SCJ. As early as in 2015, the Japan Business Federation (Keidanren) proposed that the SCJ should be “diversified”, i.e. that the number of researchers from industry, business managers, and attorneys should be increased.
The second hidden, suspected purpose of the incorporation apparently is to remove obstacles to the promotion of military and dual-use research. After the Second World War, most Japanese scientists never wanted to be involved in military research anymore, due to the detrimental utilization of science to serve the war of aggression. The fact that the current Constitution of Japan, put into effect in 1947, renunciates war and military force also supports the aversion against military research among Japanese scientists. The SCJ, since its establishment, has always clearly opposed scientific research aimed at war and for military purposes, most recently with its Statement on Research for Military Security in 2017.
However, against the background of “changes in the security environment” over the past decade, the tendency towards collaboration between the military and academia has increased. The National Security Strategy (NSS), which the Cabinet adopted without substantial discussion in the Legislature in 2013, emphasized strengthening technological capabilities, including the so-called “dual-use” technology, and advocated collaboration between industries, academia, and the government. The new NSS in 2022 and the Defense Building Program further advanced this policy. Business circles, such as Keidanren, keep demanding that the government should foster collaboration with industry and academia for military technology research, as well as enhance defense capabilities and export defense equipment.
Putting the NSS in practice, the Acquisition, Technology & Logistics Agency (ATLA), an external bureau of the Ministry of Defense, started a research fund for defense technologies in 2015. Many scientists were concerned about this new policy. The SCJ organized a task force to examine the possible effects of ATLA’s research fund on academic freedom and university autonomy. The SCJ’s Statement on Research for Military Security, issued in 2017, pointed out that ATLA’s fund “has many problems due to these governmental interventions into research”. It also recommended that universities and academic institutions should establish a system to critically review proposals for research that can be used for military security research as for their appropriateness, both technologically and ethically. The statement endorsed previous statements issued by the SCJ on military research (from 1950 and 1967) as well. Thus, although the statement did not directly call for the prohibition of military research, it certainly frustrated the government, as well as right wing parties and politicians. The SCJ, in their eyes, is a serious obstacle to the promotion of military technology research. In the legislative deliberation of the bill, a minister in charge of the Cabinet Office answered to a right-wing populist party member that the bill “would allow for the exclusion of members who repeat certain ideological or partisan positions”.
Similar constellations can be found worldwide. All over Europe and also in Germany, there has been growing pressure on universities to participate in military research. The European Commission is increasing spending on dual-use research in response to a “more threatening geopolitical context”. While German universities and institutes have long adopted the principle of restricting research to peaceful purposes, parts of the German government would like them to abandon this principle.
Incorporation as a means of controlling academia
In Japan, the “incorporation” has not only been limited to the SCJ. National universities were already incorporated in 2004 as a part of new public management reforms, and for the past two decades Japanese scientists have been experiencing difficulties caused by the accompanying budget cuts and enhanced government interference. Universities face numerous predicaments. For example, they cannot replace retired faculty members, are compelled to rely on part-time staff, the research budget for teachers has been cut, and tuition fees have increased. University autonomy has constantly been weakened. They are obliged to draw up a medium-term “management, academic and educational achievement plan” and detailed key goal indicators (KGIs) every six years. Since the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) reviews the plan and the KGIs, and the result of this review is directly linked to the grants that universities depend on, universities seemingly voluntarily bow to the government’s direction and policy.
Furthermore, the university faculty gets less and less involved in decision-making. The power is concentrated in a small number of people, mainly the university presidents and executive committee members, that include also corporation executives and former MEXT bureaucrats. The president used to be elected by the faculty’s vote, but nowadays, a “president selection committee,” consisting of both members and non-members of the university, decides who will be the president. The faculty council was deprived of all decision-making power, including faculty’s employment and promotion, and has now been reduced to a mere liaison council.
As a result, Japan’s position in international science is declining, based on criteria such as the number and quality of articles published in international journals. Students who witness the current situation of universities and professors are not attracted to Japanese academia when choosing their career. The number of students enrolling in PhD programs is decreasing. An ex-Minister of the MEXT, Dr. Akito Arima, a nuclear physicist and also ex-president of the University of Tokyo, admitted in a newspaper interview in 2020 that the “incorporation of national university was a mistake.” Many scientists express concern that incorporating the SCJ would now repeat the same mistake.
Protest movement against the bill
Worried scientists and citizens campaigned against the bill. They held mass rallies around the Parliament and lobbied Parliamentarians. Around 65,000 people have signed an online petition. More than a hundred academic societies and associations, citizen organizations, trade unions, and lawyers’ associations issued statements against the bill. As a result, in the House of Representatives, not only progressive or democratic parties, but also centrist or center-right parties, who had initially been undecided or in favor, voted against the bill. Only the ruling coalition and a right-wing populist party voted in favor of it. The bill, however, was passed without any amendments in the House of Councillors and enacted on June 11. The law will take effect, and the “new” SCJ, with new membership and new regulations, will commence on October 1, 2026.
Against the crisis of academic freedom and the promotion of military research
The bill was passed although the government’s representative during the Legislative deliberations had repeatedly assured the opposition parties that the government would respect the SCJ’s independence and autonomy. As many as 11 and 14 supplementary resolutions were adopted in the House of Representatives and House of Councillors, respectively. These legally non-binding resolutions ask the government to take SCJ’s independence and autonomy into account and to provide adequate financial support. They may be a reflection of the fact that the government and the ruling coalition could not ignore the campaign against the bill and the many opposing voices. We are not powerless. To prevent these assurances and resolutions from becoming empty promises, it is essential that scientists and citizens continue to monitor the government and SCJ closely, and take immediate action if the SCJ’s independence and autonomy are threatened again. Moreover, a new campaign and the amendment of the law will be needed to restore genuine independence and autonomy to the SCJ as the national academy.
Finally, it is critical to take precautions against academia’s further involvement into military research. The day after the bill was passed, the Ministry of Defence announced the establishment of a new organisation, the Defence Science Technology Board, whose mission is to contribute to the ministry’s planning of policies and measures related to science and technology. Eight of 16 board members are university professors. To prevent further military research in academia, taking action not to permit the “new” SCJ to overturn the “former” SCJ’s policy is crucial. If we fail, military research in academia will accelerate.