Create an Aging Tech Living Lab in Japan: ¥320 Million Grants from MLIT to Build Municipal Living Labs (2025)

Japan’s municipalities have an unusual advantage: they face one of the world’s most acute aging challenges, and that makes them the ideal places to test real solutions. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT) is offering a serious push: roughly ¥320,000,000 (about $2.1 million USD) per municipality to build two-year living labs where startups, care providers, researchers, and—critically—older residents co-design and test aging-focused technologies and services. If your town or prefecture wants to move beyond trial-and-error and run rigorous, community-rooted pilots, this program is tailor-made.

This article walks you through what the grant covers, who should apply, how to write a proposal that reviewers actually want to fund, and the nuts-and-bolts steps to meet the July 1, 2025 deadline. Consider this your practical guide: no bureaucratic fog, just clear steps and concrete examples so you can turn a community need into a funded living lab.

At a Glance

Why this grant matters (and what a living lab actually is)

If you picture a living lab as a laboratory with a nicer sofa, stop there. A living lab is a structured, iterative process where technologies are tested under real-life conditions, feedback is collected continuously, and designs are adapted with users at the center. Imagine a neighborhood where an assistive-lift is tested in actual apartments; where social-connection platforms are tested with homebound seniors over months, not days; where sensor systems are evaluated not just for accuracy but for how they affect privacy and dignity.

MLIT’s program is not just giving cash to buy devices. It funds four major areas—technology pilots, infrastructure upgrades, community engagement, and data governance—so that a pilot is technically viable, ethically sound, and socially accepted. In plain terms: this is money to do the whole job properly, from wiring the WiFi to training care staff and documenting outcomes that can be scaled.

What This Program Offers (200+ words)

The ¥320 million is meant to cover the full lifecycle of a real-world living lab, not one-off toy projects. Typical allocations are around:

• Technology pilots (≈ ¥140M): Funds to buy or lease equipment, integrate software, run field trials, and support vendor training and on-site technical assistance. This can include mobility aids, remote monitoring, medication management platforms, companion robots, and integrated multi-service apps.
• Care infrastructure upgrades (≈ ¥90M): Renovations for universal design, WiFi and network upgrades, power and sensor installations, and accessibility modifications to make real environments usable for testing.
• Community engagement (≈ ¥50M): Resources for workshops, digital literacy training, intergenerational programs, volunteer coordination, and outreach to ensure participants are comfortable and willing to contribute honest feedback.
• Data governance and evaluation (≈ ¥40M): Funding for evaluation specialists, privacy safeguards, data storage and processing, AI ethics reviews, and impact measurement systems.

Beyond cash, MLIT offers technical assistance to navigate regulatory hurdles and access to a national network of aging-focused experts and potential partners. The program also includes a regulatory sandbox route for technologies that need temporary exemptions for testing in real settings. That kind of regulatory support can be decisive when testing medical-grade monitoring or transportation solutions.

Who Should Apply (200+ words)

This grant is for municipalities that want to do more than install devices. Good applicants are municipalities or prefectures that can credibly run a two-year iterative test with measurable outcomes and real community involvement.

You’re a strong candidate if municipal leadership treats aging innovation as strategic. That means a mayor, council, or department heads who will commit staff time, policy support, and follow-through. A proposal written by a lone officer with good intentions but no institutional backing will struggle.

You should also have or be able to assemble a balanced partnership team. Ideal partners include local universities (gerontology, robotics, public health), startups with deployed products, home-care providers, community centers, and civic groups. Letters of intent from partners are expected and will strengthen your case.

Most important: you must show a commitment to co-design with older residents and caregivers. If you plan to decide problems in a back room and drop tech into people’s homes, don’t apply. If instead you plan listening sessions, prototypes that change based on resident feedback, and shared evaluation metrics with care recipients, you have a competitive edge.

Real-world examples of good fits:

• A mid-sized city with a high proportion of homebound seniors and an existing university lab in robotics.
• A rural prefecture with nurse shortages that wants to test remote monitoring plus community volunteer models to reduce unnecessary hospital visits.
• An urban ward that aims to redesign public spaces for mobility assistance and test integrated transport booking systems for seniors.

Insider Tips for a Winning Application (300+ words)

Winning this grant means persuading reviewers that your plan is practical, ethical, and scalable. Here are specific, actionable tips that go beyond the basic guidelines.

Start with the problem, not the product. Describe the challenge in human terms—how many seniors are isolated, how many hours caregivers spend, how many avoidable hospital visits occur. Pair that with a clear target: “Reduce unplanned hospital admissions among homebound seniors by 20% in 18 months,” for example. Concrete goals show you know what success looks like.

Show a phased plan. Break your living lab into phases: co-design and baseline data (0–3 months), initial pilot deployment (months 4–9), iteration and scale tests (months 10–18), evaluation and handover (months 19–24). Attach budgets and responsibilities to each phase. This demonstrates discipline and reduces perceived risk.

Design evaluation around validated instruments. Instead of vague “quality of life” claims, use established measures—the UCLA Loneliness Scale for social isolation, the Barthel Index for daily living activities, or standardized caregiver burden scales. Explain sample sizes and statistical approaches: how many participants you’ll recruit, what qualifies as meaningful change, and how you’ll handle attrition.

Address ethics and privacy plainly. Don’t write a paragraph of jargon—explain consent processes, data minimization rules, anonymization plans, and who will own the data. Show you’ll run ethics review boards and include older residents in oversight roles. That calms reviewers who worry about surveillance-style projects.

Plan for sustainability now. Say whether the municipality will absorb ongoing costs, seek vendor subscription models, or pursue private investment for scale. If your technology could reduce caregiver hours, estimate municipal savings and present a realistic path to sustained funding.

Build diversity into partners and participants. Include small community groups and local NGOs, not just high-tech startups. Recruit a participant pool that reflects different ages over 65, mobility levels, and tech comfort. Present a recruitment and retention plan: local outreach events, transport for participants, and simple incentives like meal vouchers or phone data top-ups.

Prepare a tight presentation for the evaluation panel. Use three use-cases to tell the story: the problem, the tech solution, and the expected measured impact. Be ready for tough questions about safety, scale, and equity.

Application Timeline (150+ words)

Work backward from July 1, 2025. Assume the application requires a detailed concept proposal submitted on that date.

February–April 2025: Convene partners and draft the concept. Hold initial community listening sessions and gather baseline demographic and service-use data. Draft letters of intent from startups, universities, and care providers.

May–June 2025: Refine your proposal based on partner and community feedback. Finalize your budget, evaluation framework, and ethics plan. Have municipal leadership review and sign off.

July 1, 2025: Submit concept proposal. Submit early—don’t wait until the last day.

August–September 2025: If shortlisted, prepare a 30-minute presentation for the national evaluation panel. Polish visuals and prepare answers about metrics, safety, and scale.

October–December 2025: If selected, finalize contracts, ethics approvals, recruit participants, and begin infrastructure upgrades.

2026–2027: Run the two-year living lab with quarterly public demonstrations, regular reporting, and a final evaluation report.

Required Materials (150+ words)

Expect to submit a concept proposal of 20–30 pages and supporting documents. Key items you’ll need:

• Project narrative: Outline problems, objectives, methods, and phased timeline. Include concrete targets and evaluation plan.
• Budget and budget justification: Break down how you’ll spend the ¥320M across pilots, infrastructure, engagement, and evaluation.
• Letters of intent: From startups, universities, care providers, and community organizations. These should describe roles and resource commitments.
• Baseline data: Demographic figures, current care statistics, workforce information, and costs.
• Ethics and data governance plan: Consent processes, anonymization, data storage, and oversight.
• Community engagement plan: How you will recruit, train, and sustain participant involvement.
• CVs or bios of key personnel and municipal sign-off demonstrating leadership buy-in.

A practical tip: draft standardized letters of intent early and ask partners to return signed versions within two weeks. Use your municipal legal office to vet data governance language before submission.

What Makes an Application Stand Out (200+ words)

Reviewers fund applications that demonstrate realism, inclusion, and replicability. Standout proposals combine local urgency with rigorous methods and a commitment to sharing what’s learned.

First, clarity of purpose. If your project answers “what exact problem are you solving?” with numbers and measurable endpoints, that gives reviewers confidence. Second, cross-sector collaboration. A balanced team showing technical capacity, care expertise, and social-service reach signals readiness. Third, ethics and participant voice. Applications that include older residents as co-designers, not just subjects, show cultural humility and practical foresight.

Fourth, a plan for sustainability and scaling. If you can show how a successful pilot could be funded after the two years—through municipal budgets, subscription models, or national programs—you show long-term value. Fifth, rigorous evaluation. Use tested metrics, pre-specified endpoints, and clear analysis plans. Include an external evaluator if possible.

Finally, learning and dissemination. Commit to publishing findings, hosting demonstration days, and contributing to a national learning repository. Propose how other municipalities can adopt your model, with cost templates and technical specifications.

Common Mistakes to Avoid (200+ words)

Many proposals fail not because ideas are bad, but because they’re incomplete or unrealistic. Avoid these common pitfalls:

1. Selling technology over outcomes. Don’t describe gadgets and hope reviewers infer impact. Start with the outcome and show how the technology achieves it.
2. Weak ethics and privacy provisions. Vague statements like “we will protect data” won’t pass. Provide concrete consent forms, storage locations, retention periods, and anonymization techniques.
3. No municipal buy-in. If the municipality hasn’t committed staff time or budget for ongoing costs, reviewers worry the project will die when the money runs out.
4. Unrealistic sample sizes or vague evaluation plans. Be conservative and realistic about recruitment and attrition. Explain how you’ll handle missing data.
5. Under-budgeting for community engagement. Engagement is not free. Budget for translators, transport, stipends, and training sessions. Good engagement reduces dropout and improves data quality.
6. Ignoring the user experience. If your technology requires a complicated app or frequent maintenance, show how you’ll simplify interfaces and provide hands-on support.

Fix these by being concrete: include samples of consent forms, letters of commitment, realistic budgets, and pilot-friendly UX plans.

Frequently Asked Questions (200+ words)

Q: Do I need to pick specific products before applying? A: No. The concept proposal should describe problem areas and candidate technology types. Having preliminary vendor conversations helps, but you don’t need final procurement decisions.

Q: Can we test pre-commercial technologies? A: Yes. MLIT supports regulatory sandbox arrangements for carefully controlled pilots. You’ll need strong safety protocols and ethics oversight.

Q: How many participants are required? A: There’s no fixed number, but aim for sample sizes large enough to support your evaluation—commonly 30–50 engaged participants per intervention. Quality of engagement matters more than raw numbers.

Q: Is there a match requirement? A: Not formally, but showing municipal contributions—staff time, facilities, or budget commitments—strengthens your application.

Q: What happens to successful technologies after the pilot? A: That depends on agreements with vendors and municipal budgets. Proposals should discuss possible paths: municipal purchase, vendor subscription, or transition to commercial versions.

Q: Will international partners be allowed? A: Partnerships with international researchers or vendors are possible, but the applicant must be a Japanese municipality. Funding goes to the municipality.

Q: Will the Ministry publish evaluation results? A: The Ministry expects rigorous reporting and may disseminate lessons nationally. Proposals that commit to sharing findings are favored.

Next Steps — How to Apply (100+ words)

Ready to move? Start by convening a small steering group inside your municipality: someone from the mayor’s office, social services, IT, and procurement. Begin partner outreach now—universities, local startups, and care providers. Run two or three community listening sessions to shape your problem statement. Draft a 2–3 page concept summary by May, then expand into the full 20–30 page concept in June.

Submit your concept proposal by July 1, 2025. Visit the official program page for full guidelines and to find the Ministry’s support desk contact: https://www.mlit.go.jp/en/

If you want feedback on a draft concept, consider sharing an outline with MLIT’s support desk early; they can point out formal requirements and common pitfalls. Good preparation increases your chances of being invited to present to the national panel later in the summer.

Get Started

Ready to apply? Visit the official opportunity page and support desk information here: https://www.mlit.go.jp/en/

Questions about partner matchmaking, evaluation design, or community engagement strategies? Start with your municipal research office or local university—then loop in MLIT’s support desk for technical clarifications. This is a rare chance to turn demographic pressure into practical solutions that other cities around the world will watch closely.