JST President Michiharu Nakamura attended the Global Research Council (GRC) Annual Global Meeting held in Berlin in May 2013.
The GRC is an organization comprising the heads of research funding agencies from around the world, and was established on the initiative of Dr. Subra Suresh, the former president of the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) in May 2012.
This year's annual meeting was hosted by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) of Brazil, and discussion focused on the topics of "Research Integrity" and "Open Access to Publications".
http://www.dfg.de/en/magazine/dfg_international/130528_grc_annual_meeting/
Regarding Research Integrity, a statement was endorsed describing the role that funding organizations should play to ensure that the research they support is conducted with the highest integrity.
Open Access to Publications refers to the suggestion that published results from publicly funded research should be publicly available to share and reuse, and that the knowledge they contain should be freely accessible. Regarding this issue, the annual meeting adopted an action plan to promote its implementation.
It was announced that the next Annual Global Meeting will be co-hosted by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), and will be held in May, 2014 in Beijing. http://www.globalresearchcouncil.org/meetings/2014-meeting
JST will continue to contribute to the activities of the GRC to improve the quality of R&D innovation in Japan.
JST, an integrated organization of science and technology in Japan, establishes an infrastructure for the entire process from the creation of knowledge to the return to the society. For more information, visit http://www.jst.go.jp/EN/