Japan’s Science-Security Convergence Needs Guardrails

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.

Japan has formulated such plans every five years since the First Basic Plan in 1996. In 2021, “innovation” was added to the title. What distinguishes the Seventh Basic Plan is its explicit identification of “organic coordination between science and technology and national security” as a major policy challenge.

The connection between science and technology policy and security, however, is not new. The Sixth Basic Plan reflected concerns about interstate technology competition, technology leakage and research integrity, including transparency and fairness in research. During the Sixth Plan, Japan also advanced policies linking critical technologies to security, including the Economic Security Promotion Act of 2022 and the Key and Advanced Technology R&D through Cross Community Collaboration Program, known as the K Program.

Against this backdrop, the Seventh Basic Plan advances the “strategic prioritization of technology areas.” It identifies 17 emerging and foundational technology areas and groups six of them into national strategic technology categories: artificial intelligence and advanced robotics, quantum technology, semiconductors and communications, biotechnology and health care, fusion energy and space.

The significance lies partly in the convergence of these priorities. AI, quantum technology, semiconductors, space and biotechnology appear repeatedly not only in the Seventh Basic Plan, but also in Japan’s economic security, defense and growth strategies. The rationale differs — scientific potential, responses to social challenges, industrial competitiveness, economic security, technological autonomy and defense capability — but the technologies being targeted increasingly overlap.

The Seventh Basic Plan therefore does more than recognize an existing trend. While acknowledging that science, technology and innovation policy and national security policy have distinct purposes, it makes their “organic coordination” an explicit policy objective. The plan brings together policy currents that have developed separately and raises a central question: How should the promotion of scientific research, the creation of economic and social value and national security requirements be connected and governed?

Why dual-use?

The growing importance of dual-use technologies makes that question particularly urgent. Technologies developed primarily for civilian purposes — including drones, artificial intelligence, satellite communications and semiconductors — increasingly play important roles in security. It is becoming difficult to distinguish civilian from defense technologies simply by considering who developed them or what they were originally designed to do.

Basic research at universities and national research institutions is not outside this reality. The Seventh Basic Plan acknowledges that, in practice, it is “extremely difficult” to distinguish civilian technologies from those related to security.

The plan argues that investment in dual-use technologies can advance science and technology, strengthen industrial competitiveness and support long-term economic growth while also maintaining technological advantages important to national security. In this sense, dual-use technology is more than a technical category. It is a bridge connecting science and technology, industry, economic security and national security.

The plan calls for an “ecosystem in the security field” that extends beyond the traditional defense industry to companies, startups, universities and national research and development agencies. It also seeks to promote a “two-way flow” of technologies between civilian and security applications.

The role of universities and researchers is consequently expanding. The plan calls for dual-use research and development “including at the basic stage” and proposes new research hubs at universities and national research institutes while strengthening support for basic research. For basic research supported by the Defense Ministry, it calls for dialogue and efforts to deepen understanding so researchers can participate “without hesitation.”

The relationship between universities and security is not new. But alongside the traditional role of protecting research through research integrity and research security, universities are increasingly expected to help cultivate technologies that contribute to security.

Cultivation and protection are closely linked. Alongside strategic research and development in dual-use technologies, the plan calls for both the promotion and protection of technologies important to economic security, as well as stronger research security. As a result, research and development, social implementation, security applications and protection increasingly converge around the same technologies and researchers.

Why governance matters

That convergence creates a governance problem because the policies involved operate according to different principles.

Scientific research values researcher autonomy, diversity of inquiry and the long-term accumulation of knowledge. Innovation policy emphasizes commercialization, social implementation and value creation. Security policy prioritizes national objectives, technological advantage, protection and risk management.

These priorities cannot simply coexist without tension. Excessive security controls could restrict international collaboration and open-ended research, weakening Japan’s scientific capabilities. Excessive openness, meanwhile, could increase the risk of technology leakage and undermine strategic advantages. Protecting one value can therefore impose costs on another.

The distribution of those costs and responsibilities is equally important. Universities and researchers involved in security-related fields may have to conduct due diligence on research partners and funding sources, manage sensitive data and incorporate security considerations into decisions that previously focused primarily on scientific merit.

How those burdens are divided among the government, universities, researchers and companies will be crucial to sustaining the connection between science, technology and security.

This is why governance matters. It means determining who sets priorities when objectives conflict, what criteria are used to make those decisions and who bears the resulting costs and responsibilities.

Governance is already taking place. Selective government funding for critical technologies influences the direction of research and development, while research security requirements and export controls affect academic partnerships and the handling of scientific outcomes. The question is therefore not whether governance is necessary but where the boundaries among different policy priorities should be drawn.

The Seventh Basic Plan addresses this challenge institutionally. In seeking to renew Japan’s science, technology and innovation system, it calls for moving beyond siloed management structures toward a layered approach that treats policy functions, rather than organizations, as the relevant units. It also seeks to strengthen the Council for Science, Technology and Innovation, chaired by the prime minister and serving as the government-wide coordinating body for science and tech policy.

But creating structures and procedures does not by itself resolve conflicts among different policy logics. When scientific research, innovation, economic security and national security point in different directions, what should take precedence? Where should the boundaries be drawn?

The Seventh Basic Plan provides criteria for making such judgments, but it does not clearly establish what should happen when those criteria conflict. Once different policy objectives reach the same research institutions, technologies and researchers, breaking down silos is only the beginning. The deeper challenge is deciding how those policy domains should interact and how their differences should be managed.

This is not uniquely a Japanese problem. As scientific and technological capabilities increasingly shape industrial competitiveness and national security, liberal democracies face the same challenge: connecting science and technology to security requirements while preserving the autonomy of universities and the openness of research.

The goal should not be to force science, innovation and security into a single logic. It should be to create governance capable of connecting them while preserving their distinct purposes and appropriate autonomy. Japan’s Seventh Basic Plan makes that task explicit. Its success will depend not simply on which technologies it chooses to prioritize, but on how it manages the tensions created when scientific ambition, economic value and national security converge.

(Photo Credit: Mainichi Newspapers/ Aflo)

[Note] This article was posted to the Japan Times on September 11, 2026:

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/commentary/2026/09/11/japan/japan-science-security/

Hiroyuki Matsumura

Hiroyuki Matsumura is a professor in the Faculty of Economics at Komazawa University in Tokyo. Geoeconomic Briefing is a series featuring researchers at the IOG focused on Japan’s challenges in that field. It also provides analyses of the state of the world and trade risks, as well as technological and industrial structures.

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Geoeconomic Briefing is a series featuring researchers at the IOG focused on Japan’s challenges in that field. It also provides analyses of the state of the world and trade risks, as well as technological and industrial structures (Editor-in-chief: Dr. Kazuto Suzuki, Director, Institute of Geoeconomics (IOG); Professor, The University of Tokyo).

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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this Geoeconomic Briefing do not necessarily reflect those of the International House of Japan, the Institute of Geoeconomics (IOG) or any other organizations to which the author belongs.