[Summary of a Report from the Science Council of Japan]

The Subcommittee of Clinical Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Committee of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Science Council of Japan, released the report "Promotion of Social Contributions of Research on Clinical Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences" in September 2017, after analyzing the current status of the doctoral course in the 4-year system and extensive discussion. The analysis demonstrated that most of the themes of the doctoral course were related to research. However, most of the students in the general selection were involved in basic research, while the students in the adult selection were undertaking research on clinical pharmacy and pharmaceutical sciences. This situation should be improved because the number of students in the adult selection is limited at present. On the other hand, most of the research on clinical practice includes only survey studies and their generalization will be difficult. It will therefore be important to promote collaboration between clinical practice and universities in the future. Based on this condition, the subcommittee proposed that "reverse-translational research" should be the core of research on clinical pharmacy and pharmaceutical sciences in the near future. In addition, 1) collaboration among different research fields, 2) collaboration with clinical practice, 3) maintenance of research funding, and 4) development of human resources should be addressed.