Talent Development Programs
PM Development and Promotion Program
The Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) has been expanding our funding on motivated and committed R&D projects through the promotion of strategic R&D and the propagation of R&D results. Meanwhile, at the Industrial Competitiveness Council 2014, the necessity to enhance the “bridging” functions was indicated. More specifically, to continually create innovation that will bolster our country’s industrial competitiveness, we must promote open innovation through industry-academia-governmental collaborations by stepping up the capacity to generate innovative “seeds” of technology, and enhance the functions of “the bridge builders” to prompt the commercialization of such technology seeds by private sectors. As funding agencies are highly expected to function as such “bridge builders,” the development of program managers, who are needed for realizing innovation, and the establishment of their career tracks were considered urgent priorities. In addition, “the Fifth Science and Technology Basic Plan (adopted on January 22, 2016)” included the government’s initiative to promote the efforts on developing and securing program managers and other various talents who will be responsible for planning and managing R&D projects. To respond to such requests and expectations to enhance the bridging function, JST has employed its accumulation of experiences to establish the “Program Manager (PM) Development and Promotion Program” since AY 2015. Dedicated to the development of program managers, the program is recruiting trainees from the general public.
These trainees will obtain essential knowledge and skills, receive mentors’ advice, and practice their own R&D program from the conceptualization of the proposal (first stage) to its execution (second stage). Such hands-on experiences make this a more practical development program, not merely an opportunity for knowledge acquisition.