Until now, the distribution of research funds (Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (KAKENHI) in Japan) has been divided into two categories: ``Distribute small research expenses to many researchers'' and ``Distribute large amounts of research expenses to a few specific researchers. There has been a global debate over which of the two will produce more new results and lead to innovation, and which will lead to Nobel Prize-winning discoveries.

　This time, the research group targeted more than 1991 research projects in life sciences and medicine-related fields since 18 registered in the Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research Database, We comprehensively investigated the relationship between the number of published papers, the number of emerging topics created, and the number of Nobel Prize-level topics created.

　As a result, for researchers on the receiving side, the higher the research funding, the more research results they can produce. It was found that the number of Nobel prize-level topic creations decreased compared to before receiving research funding.

　Also, looking at the efficiency of creating research results relative to the total amount of investment from the side of investing research funds, it is better to distribute small research funds of 500 million yen or less to many researchers. It was more effective than distributing it to a limited number of researchers in the research area.

　It is hoped that the results of this study will serve as basic knowledge that will contribute to Japan's research policy and research funding administration.

Paper information:[PLoS ONE] The effectiveness of Japanese public funding to generate emerging topics in life science and medicine