Japan’s science-security convergence needs guardrails

Japan's minister of science and technology, Yohei Matsumoto, speaks during a budget committee session in the Lower House of parliament in Tokyo in December 2025. The government must determine how to connect science, innovation and security while managing the tensions created when their priorities converge. | Bloomberg

Sep 11, 2026

Japan’s latest science and technology strategy makes national security a central pillar of research and innovation policy. The challenge now is to harness science, innovation and security without letting one agenda overwhelm the others.

In March, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s Cabinet approved the Seventh Science, Technology and Innovation Basic Plan, a five-year framework that sets the government’s direction on science and technology policy and, crucially, seeks to connect scientific research, industrial innovation and national security around a common set of critical technologies.

That convergence creates opportunities for Japan, but it also raises a fundamental question: How can different policy priorities be connected without allowing one to overwhelm the others? The plan identifies investment priorities, outlines support for research and development by universities and companies and seeks to translate research into social and economic value. But as science, innovation and security increasingly converge, Japan must determine how to govern the tensions among them.

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