The 3.648 trillion yen FY2011 science and technology budget consists of over 300 seisaku (projects) administered by 15 ministries and agencies. We first review the economic rationale of its policy objectives. We then extend Steinmueller's (2010) taxonomy of technology policy to science, technology and innovation policy. We do so by constructing a two dimensional system where each project is associated with an objective (e.g., basic research, complementary assets) and method (e.g., horizontal funding, target funding). We believe such an approach is useful for project evaluation (objective and method) that lead to better project design in the future. While some objectives and methods are not compatible, e.g., basic research (objective) and T Technology acquisition (method), we also identify “missing” combinations of objective and method, which can be utilized in future project design, reason a particular method cannot be used for an objective.
