KAKENHI — short for Kagaku Kenkyuhi Josei Jigyo, the Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research — is Japan’s flagship competitive research-funding program. It is the largest single source of competitive research funding in Japan by both budget and number of awards, spanning every academic discipline from the humanities through the physical and life sciences. For a research administrator or an international researcher encountering Japanese funding for the first time, KAKENHI is the program almost everyone eventually needs to understand, because it is the default mechanism through which Japan-based investigators fund their own independent research.
This guide covers what KAKENHI is, its major grant categories and their funding scale, who is eligible to apply (including non-Japanese nationals and overseas-affiliated researchers), and how the application and review process works. For background on the agency that administers most of the program day to day, see our companion guide to JSPS (Japan Society for the Promotion of Science), which covers JSPS’s broader mandate, fellowship programs, and role in Japan’s research-funding landscape.
What KAKENHI is and who administers it
KAKENHI is not run by a single agency. Administration is currently divided between Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), which acts as MEXT’s implementing body for most KAKENHI categories. Historically, MEXT itself directly screened and administered the largest, longest-running categories (such as Specially Promoted Research and Scientific Research (S)), while JSPS administered the majority of other categories on MEXT’s behalf. In recent years the two bodies have been phasing in “fund” (kikin)-type administration for a growing share of KAKENHI categories — allowing grantees more flexible multi-year budget carry-over than the traditional single-year subsidy (hojokin) format — with the stated long-term direction being further consolidation of KAKENHI administration under JSPS. Applicants should always confirm which agency is currently screening a specific category for the fiscal year they’re applying in, since the split has continued to shift.
Structurally, KAKENHI functions as an open, investigator-initiated (bottom-up) competitive grants program: researchers propose their own topics rather than responding to a directed research priority set by the funder, which distinguishes it from many of Japan’s other, more targeted national research programs.
Major KAKENHI grant categories
KAKENHI is not one grant but a family of categories, differentiated primarily by project scale, career stage, and research approach. The table below summarizes the principal categories and their typical funding scale and duration, verified against JSPS’s own published program descriptions; treat the funding figures as the general range JSPS publishes rather than a guarantee for any specific competition, since amounts and thresholds are revised periodically.
| Category | Typical duration | Typical funding scale |
|---|---|---|
| Specially Promoted Research | 3–5 years (up to 7 if necessary) | ¥200–500 million total |
| Transformative Research Areas (A) | 5 years | ¥50–300+ million per fiscal year (area-wide) |
| Transformative Research Areas (B) | 3 years | Up to ¥50 million per fiscal year |
| Scientific Research (S) | 5 years | ¥50–200 million total |
| Scientific Research (A) | 3–5 years | ¥20–50 million total |
| Scientific Research (B) | 3–5 years | ¥5–20 million total |
| Scientific Research (C) | 3–5 years | Up to ¥5 million total |
| Challenging Research (Pioneering) | 3–6 years | ¥5–20 million total |
| Challenging Research (Exploratory) | 2–3 years | Up to ¥5 million total |
| Early-Career Scientists | 2–5 years | Up to ¥5 million total |
| Research Activity Start-up | 1–2 years | Up to ¥3 million total |
| Grant-in-Aid for JSPS Fellows | Up to 3 years (up to 5 for CPD Fellows) | Varies by fellowship |
A separate Fund for the Promotion of Joint International Research sits alongside these and is specifically structured for cross-border collaboration:
- International Leading Research — up to 7 years (extendable to 10), up to ¥500 million, for large-scale international collaborations led by a Japan-based team.
- Fostering Joint International Research — 6–12 months, up to ¥12 million, intended to help an existing KAKENHI grantee develop a research plan jointly with a partner at an overseas institution.
- International Collaborative Research — 3–6 years, up to ¥20 million, for sustained joint projects with an overseas partner institution.
- Home-Returning Researcher Development Research — up to 3 years, up to ¥50 million, aimed at researchers returning to a Japanese institution after a period abroad.
A few smaller, purpose-specific categories round out the program: Grant-in-Aid for Special Purposes (for urgent or exceptional research needs), Grant-in-Aid for Encouragement of Scientists, and Grant-in-Aid for Publication of Scientific Research Results, which funds costs associated with publishing research outputs, disseminating results internationally, and building scientific databases rather than funding the underlying research itself.
Eligibility, including for international and overseas-affiliated researchers
KAKENHI eligibility is tied to institutional affiliation, not nationality. To serve as principal investigator (kenkyu daihyosha) on most KAKENHI categories, a researcher must hold an appointment at a Japanese research institution that JSPS/MEXT recognize as eligible to receive KAKENHI funds — typically universities, national and public research institutes, and certain company research divisions registered for this purpose. Because the requirement is affiliation-based, non-Japanese nationals who hold a qualifying appointment at an eligible Japanese institution are, as a general rule, eligible to apply as principal investigators on the same basis as Japanese nationals; this is a routine and common path for foreign faculty and researchers based at Japanese universities.
Researchers who are not affiliated with an eligible Japanese institution — including most researchers based entirely overseas — cannot generally serve as a KAKENHI principal investigator directly, but have several structured ways to participate:
- As an overseas partner on the Fund for the Promotion of Joint International Research (described above), where a Japan-based KAKENHI grantee formally partners with a researcher at a foreign institution.
- As a JSPS Fellow — including Foreign JSPS Fellows hosted at a Japanese institution — who can then apply for the Grant-in-Aid for JSPS Fellows category to fund their own research during the fellowship.
- Informally, as a collaborator or co-investigator named on a Japan-based colleague’s project, without themselves holding PI status.
Proposals to allow Japanese researchers living abroad to apply for KAKENHI directly have been discussed publicly as part of ongoing KAKENHI reform efforts, but this was not, as of this writing, a settled feature of the eligible-institution rule — applicants should verify current eligibility rules directly against the JSPS or MEXT call for proposals for the fiscal year and category they are applying to, since eligibility criteria, institutional registration requirements, and category-specific restrictions (such as age or years-since-degree limits on Early-Career Scientists and Research Activity Start-up) are set and revised annually.
The application and review process: e-Rad and the KAKEN database
KAKENHI applications are submitted electronically through e-Rad (the Cross-Ministerial R&D Management System), the Japanese government’s shared portal for research funding applications across multiple ministries and agencies, not just JSPS/MEXT. Both the applicant and their host institution must be registered in e-Rad before a proposal can be submitted; institutions typically manage this researcher-ID registration centrally through their research administration office rather than leaving it to individual investigators.
Applications are peer-reviewed — for most categories, through a two-stage process combining written review by multiple discipline-matched reviewers with, for larger or more competitive categories, a panel-based discussion stage. Review criteria weigh the originality and feasibility of the proposed research alongside the track record of the investigator and, for larger multi-year categories, the strength of the research environment and team.
Once a project is funded, its basic details — title, investigator, institution, funding category, amount, and (as the project proceeds) research abstracts and outcome reports — become publicly searchable through KAKEN, the database of funded KAKENHI projects maintained by Japan’s National Institute of Informatics (NII). KAKEN is separate from e-Rad: e-Rad is the application and grants-administration system, while KAKEN is the public-facing research-output and project-history database. For a research office or prospective applicant, KAKEN is a useful way to research prior funded work in a field, check a potential Japanese collaborator’s funding history, or confirm how a specific category has actually been used in practice, before drafting a new application.
The KAKENHI cycle follows Japan’s April-to-March fiscal year: calls for proposals for most categories are issued by MEXT/JSPS in the months before the fiscal year begins, review takes place over the following months, and successful projects generally start on April 1 of the new fiscal year. Because the fiscal year, category eligibility windows, and specific deadlines are set and republished annually, applicants and research offices should always work from the current fiscal year’s official call for proposals on jsps.go.jp/english or mext.go.jp rather than a prior year’s timeline.
Frequently asked questions
Is KAKENHI the same thing as JSPS?
No. KAKENHI is a specific grant program — the Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research — while JSPS is one of the two government bodies (alongside MEXT) that administer it, and JSPS also runs a range of programs entirely separate from KAKENHI, including fellowships for postdoctoral and international researchers and bilateral partnership programs. See our JSPS guide for the full picture of JSPS’s role.
Can a researcher outside Japan be the principal investigator on a KAKENHI grant?
Generally no, for most categories — PI eligibility is tied to holding an appointment at a Japanese institution recognized as eligible for KAKENHI, not to nationality. Researchers based overseas typically participate as a named partner on the Fund for the Promotion of Joint International Research, or as a collaborator on a Japan-based colleague’s project, rather than as PI. Always confirm against the current fiscal year’s official eligibility rules, since this is an area under periodic review.
What is the difference between e-Rad and KAKEN?
e-Rad is the application and administration system used to submit and manage a KAKENHI proposal. KAKEN is the separate, public database of funded projects — used for looking up what has already been funded, not for applying.
Which KAKENHI category should an early-career researcher apply to first?
Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists and Research Activity Start-up are the categories specifically structured for researchers early in their careers, with smaller budgets and shorter durations than the Scientific Research (A)/(B)/(C) tiers; exact eligibility windows (such as years since obtaining a doctoral degree) are set annually in the official call for proposals and should be checked directly rather than assumed from a prior cycle.
Related CASRAI resources
For other national and multinational funding bodies relevant to international research collaboration, see our guides to Horizon Europe and EU research funding, UKRI Grants, and A*STAR International Fellowship funding in Singapore. For the agency that administers most of KAKENHI day to day, see JSPS (Japan Society for the Promotion of Science): Funding Overview.
