Published on July 12, 2019.
This passage compares the research grants awarded to Professor Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University and Professor Jiro Yamaguchi of Hosei University, questioning how distorted Japan’s allocation of scientific research funds has become.
It criticizes a situation in which scholars seen as devoted to anti-Japan activism receive even larger sums than research such as iPS cell studies that offer hope to humanity, and sharply raises doubts about scholarship, higher education, and the national interest.

2019-07-12
I learned that the Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research awarded to Professor Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University and Professor Jiro Yamaguchi of Hosei University are 250 million yen and 600 million yen respectively.
How has such a situation come to pass!?
What follows is from an article I found online a little while ago.
I learned that the Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research awarded to Professor Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University and Professor Jiro Yamaguchi of Hosei University are 250 million yen and 600 million yen respectively.
How has such a situation come to pass!?
What does it mean that a scholar devoted chiefly to anti-Japan activism receives more than twice as much research funding as research that expands the possibilities of new regenerative medicine through iPS cells and gives great hope for the future?
Below, I quote from Netallica.
Hosei University’s Jiro Yamaguchi, “Last year’s general election was fake” — A professor with 600 million yen in research grants stirs controversy for insulting the nation’s collective will.
https://netallica.yahoo.co.jp/news/20180413-12442177-newsvision
You are free to criticize politicians as you wish, but is it not an insult to democracy to cast doubt on “the collective will of the people”?
The remarks of Professor Jiro Yamaguchi (59) of Hosei University have caused controversy.
On the 10th, on his own Twitter account, Yamaguchi urged the opposition parties to rise up, saying that they should “not merely demand Prime Minister Abe’s resignation, but take action aimed at seizing power,” and argued that the Constitutional Democratic Party, the leading opposition party, should have not so much “the construction of independence as an opposition party” as “the fighting spirit to bring down the Abe administration while leading the other opposition parties.”
That grand theory may be all very well, but after that he added these intolerable words: “To begin with, last year’s general election was fake, and the opposition must come forward with the claim that the popular will should be questioned again.”
What does it mean to say that a “general election,” in which the collective will of the people is expressed, was fake?
This is not some country that brazenly continues a long-term regime even after observers film scenes of vote manipulation.
Are these remarks making fools of the collective will of us citizens?
On his Twitter account, angry rebuttals came one after another, such as: “Calling an election fake is an insult to voters. Are you really a professor?” “Every election result you do not like is treated as fake. You are, if I recall correctly, a political scientist and also a professor in a law faculty, are you not? Do you know the preamble to the Constitution of Japan?” “Excuse me. Could you present easy-to-understand evidence that the general election was fake?”
Even if it is merely a tweet on Twitter, public opinion cannot overlook it because of the background fact that this professor has been granted enormous ‘research funds’ from the national treasury.
■Shinya Yamanaka 250 million yen, Jiro Yamaguchi 600 million yen… What has been achieved by these scattershot research grants?
Research grants are subsidies provided for “basic research” planned by university researchers or research groups, with the aim of “developing outstanding research in all fields.”
These grants can be used for items necessary for research, travel expenses, costs required to invite researchers, and the like, but they are not limited to science and chemistry, and are also applied to the humanities and social sciences, including Professor Yamaguchi’s field.
Recently, this scattershot distribution of research grants has come under criticism.
On February 26, Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker Mio Sugita questioned the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology in a subcommittee of the House of Representatives Budget Committee regarding the proper way of screening research grants.
Sugita pointed out that research grants were being provided to domestic scholars working with South Korean civic groups on the issue of wartime laborers from the period of Japanese rule over the Korean Peninsula, calling it “a structure in which shots are being fired from behind” at the government and Foreign Ministry’s positive efforts to communicate historical issues.
Furthermore, after examining where the research grants were going, Sugita announced on the web that an astonishing 600 million yen in research grants had been paid to Professor Jiro Yamaguchi, and it became a topic of discussion.
(omitted)
What exactly is this “public administration” that requires as much as 600 million yen in research funding?
I have no intention of speaking against academic freedom, but is it really necessary for the state to provide subsidies to movements that disregard the national interest?
It becomes frightening when one thinks that the result of such funding may be summed up in abusive words like “Abe! I’ll cut you down!” and in the remark in question, “The general election was fake.”
It is a situation that could even shake trust in university education itself.