e-Rad (府省共通研究開発管理システム, the Cross-Ministerial R&D Management System) is the shared online platform Japan’s national government uses to administer competitive research funding — from application through progress and final reporting — across the ministries and agencies that run it. A core piece of that infrastructure is the researcher number (研究者番号), a unique identifier assigned to each individual researcher registered in the system. This guide explains what e-Rad is, how the researcher number works, and where it fits in Japan’s national research-administration ecosystem.
What Is e-Rad?
e-Rad is described by its own operating portal (e-rad.go.jp) as a cross-ministerial system that digitizes the procedures around competitive research funding — supporting the full lifecycle from application submission through interim and final performance reporting. It is operated under Japan’s Cabinet Office (内閣府) on behalf of the government ministries and affiliated funding agencies that run competitive R&D funding programs.
The system’s stated purpose is twofold: to streamline and standardize how researchers and institutions interact with multiple funding programs through a single portal, and — specifically — to prevent fugōri na jūfuku (不合理な重複, unreasonable duplication) and kado no shūchū (過度の集中, excessive concentration) of research funds to the same researcher across different programs. Because many separate ministries and agencies each run their own grant schemes, a shared system that can see across all of them is what makes that cross-program check possible in the first place.
What Is the e-Rad Researcher Number?
The researcher number is an identifier e-Rad assigns to each individual researcher at the point they are first registered in the system, and it is designed to guarantee the uniqueness of that researcher’s record within e-Rad. In practice this means:
- Each researcher receives one researcher number, even if they are concurrently affiliated with more than one institution.
- The number is persistent — it continues to be used by the same individual after they move to a different institution, rather than being reissued.
- The number functions as the researcher’s identity key within e-Rad for every subsequent grant application, progress report, and final report submitted through the system, at any of the ministries or agencies that use it.
Functionally, this makes the e-Rad researcher number Japan’s closest national equivalent to a domestic persistent identifier for researchers within the competitive-funding system specifically — distinct in scope and governance from an international identifier such as an ORCID iD, which is discussed further below.
How Researcher Numbers Are Assigned
Registration in e-Rad happens at two linked levels: the research institution and the individual researcher.
- Institutional registration. A university, national research institute, hospital, or company that intends to receive competitive research funds must first be registered in e-Rad as a research institution (研究機関), which gives it the ability to register its affiliated researchers in the system.
- Researcher registration. Individual researchers are then registered — in practice, this is typically handled by the institution’s research administration office on the researcher’s behalf, though e-Rad’s portal also documents a path for new researchers to register directly ahead of a specific application. Once registration is verified, e-Rad issues the unique researcher number.
- Reuse, not reissue, at institutional change. If a researcher already holds a researcher number and moves to a new institution, that same number is expected to carry over and continue to be used — the researcher does not receive a new number simply because their institutional affiliation changed.
Because the number is tied to the individual rather than to a specific grant or a specific institutional affiliation, it is the reference point e-Rad uses to link a researcher’s full history of applications and awards across the different ministries and programs that rely on the system — which is also what makes the duplication/over-concentration check described above possible.
Which Agencies and Programs Use e-Rad
e-Rad is a shared system used by nine national government ministries and agencies that operate competitive R&D funding programs in Japan, with the Cabinet Office responsible for its development and operation. Programs that route through e-Rad include some of the most prominent Japanese research-funding schemes research administrators outside Japan are likely to encounter, among them:
- KAKENHI (Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research), administered by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) — see CASRAI’s KAKENHI guide for how the application and reporting cycle works.
- Competitive funding programs run by the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) — see CASRAI’s JST funding overview.
- Programs administered directly by MEXT, which also sets Japan’s national research-integrity and misconduct-response framework — see CASRAI’s guide to MEXT’s research misconduct guidelines.
Beyond these, other ministries with their own competitive-funding portfolios (for example, health, agriculture, and industry-facing research programs) are also part of the nine-ministry group that shares e-Rad, though the specific mix of participating ministries and agencies is something applicants should confirm against the current list published on e-rad.go.jp rather than assume is static, since government reorganizations can shift which body administers a given program.
e-Rad’s Role in Japan’s Research-Administration Ecosystem
For a Japanese university or national institute’s research administration office, e-Rad functions as the single point of interaction with nearly all of the national government’s competitive R&D funding — rather than filing separately with each ministry, institutions and researchers work through one shared portal for application, budget/progress reporting, and results reporting, regardless of which ministry or agency ultimately funds a given award. That consolidation is also what lets the system perform government-wide checks — most notably the duplication and over-concentration checks described above — that would not be possible if each ministry ran an isolated, unconnected application system.
This places e-Rad in a similar functional category to other national or supranational current research information systems (CRIS) that consolidate researcher, project, and funding data — see CASRAI’s overview of what a CRIS is and how CRIS interoperability works more generally — though e-Rad is specifically scoped to the Japanese government’s own competitive-funding lifecycle rather than functioning as a general-purpose institutional research-information platform.
e-Rad and International Identifiers (ORCID, ROR)
Researchers and institutions working across borders will naturally ask how the e-Rad researcher number relates to international persistent identifiers such as ORCID iD (for individual researchers) or the Research Organization Registry (ROR) identifier (for institutions). As of this writing, CASRAI could not verify, from e-Rad’s own published documentation, a formal, machine-readable interoperability mapping or automated crosswalk between e-Rad researcher numbers and ORCID iDs. The two systems currently appear to operate on separate tracks: e-Rad’s researcher number is scoped to Japan’s domestic competitive-funding administration, while ORCID iDs are the internationally interoperable identifier increasingly required by journals, international funders, and many individual Japanese universities’ own repository and CRIS systems.
In practical terms, this means a researcher active in Japan’s national funding system and in international scholarly publishing should currently expect to maintain both identifiers separately, entering each one wherever the relevant system — e-Rad for a KAKENHI or JST application, ORCID for a journal submission or an international funder’s ORCID-integrated form — asks for it, rather than assuming one number substitutes for the other. Readers who find a documented, current interoperability mechanism between the two systems should treat e-Rad’s own portal (e-rad.go.jp) as the authoritative source to confirm it, since this is exactly the kind of detail that can change as national identifier infrastructure evolves.
For International and Collaborating Researchers
Non-Japanese researchers who join a Japanese-funded project — for example, as a named collaborator, subcontractor, or co-investigator on a KAKENHI, JST, or other e-Rad-administered award — may themselves need to be registered in e-Rad and obtain a researcher number, depending on the specific program’s rules and their role in the application. In practice this registration is typically handled through the Japanese host institution’s research administration office rather than by the individual researcher directly, since institutional registration in e-Rad is a prerequisite for registering any affiliated researcher. International research offices coordinating with a Japanese partner institution should raise this early in proposal planning, alongside other program-specific eligibility and reporting requirements, rather than as a late-stage administrative step.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does e-Rad stand for, and what does the name mean?
e-Rad is short for the Japanese name 府省共通研究開発管理システム — literally the “cross-ministerial R&D management system.” “e-Rad” itself is the system’s English-language brand name, not a direct transliteration; “Rad” reflects “R&D” (research and development) rather than any specific Japanese word.
Do I need an e-Rad researcher number to apply for KAKENHI or other Japanese government funding?
Generally yes — because e-Rad is the shared application portal for KAKENHI and most other competitive funding programs run by Japan’s national ministries and agencies, a researcher named on such an application typically needs to be registered in e-Rad, with a researcher number assigned, before or as part of the application process. Requirements vary by program, so always confirm against the specific funding call’s guidelines.
Does my e-Rad researcher number change if I move to a different Japanese institution?
No. The researcher number is designed to be persistent and tied to the individual, not to a specific institutional affiliation — it continues to be used after an institutional move rather than being reissued.
Is the e-Rad researcher number the same as an ORCID iD?
No. They are separate identifier systems with separate governance and scope: the e-Rad researcher number is issued by Japan’s national government for use within its own competitive-funding administration, while ORCID iD is an internationally governed, globally interoperable identifier for individual researchers used across publishers, funders, and institutions worldwide. CASRAI could not verify a formal interoperability link between the two as of this writing — treat them as separate identifiers to maintain, not substitutes for one another.
Who operates e-Rad?
e-Rad is operated under Japan’s Cabinet Office, which is responsible for its development and operation, on behalf of the nine national government ministries and agencies that run competitive R&D funding programs and use the shared system.
Can a non-Japanese researcher get an e-Rad researcher number?
Yes, in principle — a non-Japanese researcher participating in an e-Rad-administered award (for example, as a named collaborator on a KAKENHI or JST-funded project) can be registered and assigned a researcher number, typically arranged through the Japanese host institution’s research administration office as part of institutional registration.
