2014/02/04/
For the creation of new industries and contribute to long-term care field by robotic technology, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has revised the “Priority Areas where Robotic Technology is to be Introduced in Nursing Care of the Elderly” which was first established in November 2012. Based on this decision, support for development in new priority areas is planned from the next year. Please visit the following link for more details.
Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry announcement: revise to “Priority Areas where Robotic Technology is to be Introduced in Nursing Care of the Elderly”

Priority areas newly added
In addition to the 5 priority areas defined already (wearable transfer aids, non-wearable transfer aids, outdoor mobility aids, toilet aids, monitoring systems for nursing care facilities), the following 3 categories are newly added.

Indoor mobility aids

Monitoring systems for private home

Bathing aids

Support plan
Development support (robotic care devices development and introduction project)
We plan to make the public offering of development support project for the priority areas of 5 areas 8 items, starting in March this year.

・FY2014 budget: 2.55 billion yen
・Subsidy rate: 2/3(SMEs), 1/2(Others)
Verification experiment support (robot care equipment introduction verification experiment project)
Beginning March this year, we plan to make the public offering among the robotic care devices developed in priority areas, to support large-scale verification experiment at long-term care facilities for 15 models, total about 1,500.

・FY2013 supplementary budget: 2.05 billion yen
・Subsidy rate: 2/3(SMEs), 1/2(Others) of the production and installation costs
For more information, please visit the links above or join the 5th robotic care devices development partnership meeting.