Winners take all

摘要

In a country such as Japan, where personal loyalties are strong and university pedigrees are often akin to a family bond, objective evaluation of grants can be a challenge.rnThat is perhaps one reason why Japan has historically distributed comparatively little of its science funding through competitive grants, preferring instead to spread it more evenly by funnelling the money into the basic operating budgets of universities and research institutions. In 2009, only 13.8% of the country's reseach funding was allocated through competitive grant schemes - up from just 8.9% in 2002 - a considerably lower proportion than in the United States.