For almost three decades since the collapse of its 1980s economic “bubble”, Japan has fretted — at both a public- and private-sector level — about its declining powers of innovation. The urgency of the warnings, though, did not often appear to translate into direct action.
But that may be changing. This spring, Japan formally launched its first national endowment fund for universities — a ￥10tn ($82bn) behemoth that is the largest of its type in the world and, according to those now charged with running it, a clear recognition that the country urgently needs to take innovative competitiveness more seriously.
The creation of the fund, along with plans to create a “University of Excellence” is one of a number of efforts built around the idea that Japan desperately needs to create a financial, structural and regulatory environment conducive to innovation. And, in an argument repeated in different branches of the government, this should be directed towards solving the problems that Japan, as the world’s fastest-ageing society, faces.