The Scheme Where Programme Officers Are Invisible: Organisations and Money Are Published, People Are Not

Japan's dormant deposits scheme has a role called the programme officer, abbreviated to PO in the call guidelines. The definition is a specialist who takes the lead on the non-financial support provided by a fund distribution organization: management support, hands-on support such as training, progress management, evaluation and support for collaboration.

The scheme puts considerable weight on this role.

First, it has its own cost category. Funding from JANPIA is defined as the grant (A), programme officer costs (C) and evaluation costs (D). The cost of the officer is not folded into project expenses; it is budgeted separately.

The ceilings are fixed. Programme officer costs are capped at 8 million yen per organisation per year[1], of which salary may be up to 5 million yen a year. Eligible items are recruitment costs, training fees, salary, and the costs of hands-on support such as travel and running training.

Receiving that funding also requires attending training designated by JANPIA, running three to four days a year and aimed at officers. Where salary is claimed, the organisation must publish its salary levels.

People on the scheme's own side are called officers too. The table setting out post-selection procedure includes a line for the decision of the JANPIA programme officer, who supports the steps towards the funding contract and checks the project plan alongside the organisation.

Having fixed the role this firmly, the scheme does not publish who holds it.

The guidelines contain two disclosure clauses, one on selection results and one on organisations delivering projects. Put side by side, they show what kind of scheme this is.

The clause on selection results lists six items: applicant names, the application documents submitted, the selection process, the outcome, the reasons for selection or non-selection, and the total grant with annual estimates and their basis. It applies to all applicants, selected or not, so its reach is wide.

Disclosure during delivery is also specified. A fund distribution organization publishes its call guidelines and forms on its own site when calling for implementing organizations, and publishes its salary levels and its governance and compliance rules.

Neither column contains the name of a person. Nor is this an omission. On publication of application documents, a footnote reads:

In making this disclosure, personal information contained in the application documents and parts relating to the applicant's ideas or know-how shall be withheld from publication, so as not to harm the applicant's rights or other legitimate interests.

Keeping people out of the published record is something the scheme chose.

Other distributors of public funds treat this differently. The Research Center for Science Systems at the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science publishes the names of its programme officers, senior and specialist research fellows, across nine expert panels from the humanities to medicine and pharmacy, as a roster dated 1 April 2026, along with its programme directors. The Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development, having set rules under the act on disclosure of information held by incorporated administrative agencies, lists the names, affiliations and titles of its supervisors and officers on each programme page. For Japan's main competitive research grants, the roster of assessors is published as well.

JANPIA is not publishing nothing. For the FY2019 fund distribution call, the roster of assessors is published as a PDF, with the names and affiliations of chairs and members. The composition of the assessment meetings is also published: external experts appointed by the board and commissioned by the president, who declare any relationship with applicants and withdraw from those assessments.

What is published is part of who assesses, plus organisations and money. What is not published is who accompanies.

Reading this difference as concealment misses it. The accurate reading is that transparency is built on a different axis.

Transparency in research funding starts from the fact that allocation depends on expert judgement. Without knowing who covers a field, the soundness of the allocation cannot be checked from outside. So the people are published.

Transparency in the dormant deposits scheme starts from the origin of the money. The guidelines say that "in view of the fact that the funds for dormant deposit projects are the assets of the people, and in order to fulfil accountability to the people", and then list organisation names, documents, process, reasons and amounts. The design makes it possible to follow where the money went and why.

How far and to whom transparency should open is not a question confined to this scheme. Governance of Public Cultural Facilities（外部サイト、新しいタブで開きます） (Haruka Watanabe) traces how accountability by local government has shifted in practice. Deciding what to open is also deciding whom the scheme explains itself to.

Because the axes differ, neither is better. But choosing an axis drops something on the axis not chosen. Two things drop here.

The first is information an applicant needs. An organisation seeking to become an implementing organization applies to a call issued by a fund distribution organization. What it then receives is not only money but hands-on support, covering management, progress, evaluation and collaboration. Who provides that changes how three years unfold. At the point of applying, there is no way to know. Theme and amount are all there is to choose on.

The second is the visibility of the role itself. Programme officer costs run to 8 million yen a year, salary to 5 million, which over three years reaches 24 million. That is not a small commitment to a single role. Yet the profession it funds exists, from outside, only as a job title. Against a scheme whose stated purpose includes developing intermediary professionals, not being able to see the professionals makes part of that purpose hard to measure.

This is not a failing. There are good reasons to protect personal data, and in a sector of small organisations, publishing a name can fall on the individual as a burden.

But it need not be a binary. What AMED publishes is name, affiliation and title, not personal contact details. How many people hold the role and which fields they cover is a level of detail that can be published without touching individual rights. Even numbers and fields would let someone outside the scheme check how far this profession has grown.

Where to place the axis of transparency is for the designers of a scheme to decide. Nothing in the guidelines, though, explains why there should be only one axis.

References

FY2026 Fund Distribution Organization (Grant) General Round 1 Call Guidelines — Japan Network for Public Interest Activities (JANPIA) (2026)

FY2019 Fund Distribution Organization Call: Roster of Assessors — Japan Network for Public Interest Activities (JANPIA) (2019)

Programme Officers (PO), Research Center for Science Systems — Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (2026)

Information Prescribed in Article 22 of the Act on Access to Information Held by Incorporated Administrative Agencies — Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED) (2026)

On Assessment — Japan Network for Public Interest Activities (JANPIA) (2026)