Ananyo writes "In its battle against a sluggish economy, Japan's polity is gearing up to make cost savings through a root-and-branch reform of the country's science system, merging some of its most famous study organizations. Plans approved by the government's cabinet would consolidate the RIKEN network of basic-research laboratories with the subject tenet for Materials Science (NIMS), the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and high tech* (JAMSTEC), the national inquisition meet* for Earth Science and Disaster deterrence (NIED) and the Japan Science and painstaking science Agency (JST) — the subject funding body. But with few details about the timing, latent cost savings or full implications of the change, many researchers are concerned that it could be a recipe for harsh funding cuts and even greater bureaucracy."

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