TOKYO — Research and development is a slow process — currently taking about a decade before the process comes to fruition — so Japan’s Ministry of Defense is investing in ways to bridge historical gaps that continue to slow it down.

Matsumoto Kyosuke, director general for the department of technological strategy at the Japanese Ministry of Defense’s Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Agency, noted that Japan’s defense budget has doubled in recent years, and the money needs to be put to good use.

“What is the right way to invest such a huge amount of money?” he said.

Part of it needs to go to speeding up the research and development process, he said. Currently, to get defense capabilities from R&D to operational use averages about 10 years.

The Ministry of Defense has no shortage of advanced technology and defense capabilities on its wish list, including autonomy for robots and accurate sensing, he said. “We need these kinds of capabilities.”

Kyosuke said the ministry’s larger budget is being invested in missile defense and next-generation fighter jets, but a crucial part of these programs is figuring out a way to develop them faster.

“The most important thing is to complete development, manufacture and deploy.” Shortening the 10-year period for research and development is “the biggest challenge” and “how to equip it into a product.”

“I’m going to shorten it as much as possible,” he said

One way he is hoping to reduce the development timeline is by changing research methods. He is in the process of introducing a new method called “operational demonstration research,” which he described as the agile software development of research.

Traditional methods of research that have been reliable in the past do not work as well for large-scale equipment, he said. “So, let’s integrate that a little bit … agile development of software, but in the research.”

Operators and engineers work together in an agile manner to collect various data, test them and provide feedback, “which will lead to mass production without going through development,” he said. “We are currently working to transfer what we can do to this side of the R&D program.”

This method allows “you to plan the entire plan as much as possible. There are various nodes of the vertically divided organization within the Ministry of Defense, and time is made for each node. I tried to do an effort to shorten the whole thing by omitting it. Also, block development and modularization development, which are a little bit unused yet.”

Japan is also learning from other countries. Kyosuke said he has been doing “a lot of education with other countries” such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and France, which have greater R&D resources and more robust relationships with universities — something Japan lacks and needs to be improved upon, he said.

While Japan is investing more in defense overall, and the research and development budget has increased, there is a disconnect, Kyosuke said, including with academia. To speed up the R&D process, historical issues surrounding the aerospace industry and academia need to be overcome, he said.

“We are in a situation where we are developing,” he said. “This is the kind of work we need to create” — academic integration with scientific research for military purposes. There is a difficulty in exchanging information.

“That’s what we lack,” he said. “We need more communication.” The industrial defense community is small and needs more personnel.

The agency established in 2015 a special fund called the National Security Technology Research Promotion Fund to aid unique research of universities, national laboratories and industries that “may have potential for future applications,” the agency website said.

Another recent effort to support research and development has been the establishment of an institute inspired by the United States’ Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency called the National Institute of Defense Innovation and Technology, established Oct. 1, he said.

He hopes the institute will become a hub for industry, academia and government. “That’s what I’m trying to do” — create an ecosystem of innovation. The institute is part of a government-wide effort to work together and invest more in basic research, he said.

Kyosuke said he has seen the academic climate change “a lot” since 2023, with applications from universities doubling, but they still “don’t have enough people.” He ran down a list of agencies from other countries, such as the Defense Logistics Agency and agencies in Australia and Korea, that work with thousands of people.

“We are very limited,” he said. But he is trying to change that.