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Overview of the Environment Research and Technology Development Fund

Purpose

The Environment Research and Technology Development Fund (ERTDF) aims to contribute to the preservation of the environment in Japan and around the world to establish a sustainable society. It will achieve this by assembling the collective strength of researchers within Japan from a range of fields to promote survey research and technology development in a comprehensive manner from an academic and international perspective.

Features

The ERTDF was established by integrating the Global Environment Research Fund with the Environment Technology Development Fund in FY2010 and the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research about Establishing a Sound Material-cycle Society in FY2011.
This has established a centralized contact-point, improving convenience for applicants. At the same time this move is expected to better facilitate cross-field research and development across multiple environmental fields.

A Research Fund to Support Environmental Policy

The ERTDF aims to contribute to and be reflected in governmental policy (environmental policy) developed to lead to a resolution of a range of environmental issues through the accumulation of scientific knowledge and technology development in environmental fields based on survey research. For this reason, survey research and technology development where the potential contribution to environmental policy is unclear will not be approved for funding.

A Competitive Research Fund

Research projects implemented under the ERTDF will be selected upon examination from a number of proposed projects by researchers from government, industry and academic circles and community bodies. It is referred to as a "competitive research fund" because of the competitive manner in which research proposals are chosen based on the quality of the proposal.
Proposal evaluations are carried out with the aid of an external evaluation committee made up of academic experts and other specialists (a separate subcommittee is established for each field of research). Research proposals are comprehensively evaluated on their merit from both a scientific and a policy standpoint, their potential level of contribution and their viability, while also being evaluated in line with environmental trends both inside and outside Japan.