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调研报告及结论（1）
目录
CHAPTER THREE Conclusions
APPENDIX A Questionnaire for Interviews with Experts
APPENDIX B Summaries of Individual Interviews
Summary 1
Summary 2
Summary 3
Summary 4
Summary 5
Summary 6
Summary 7
Summary 8
Summary 9
Summary 10
Summary 11
Summary 12
Summary 13
Summary 14
Summary 15
Summary 16
Summary 17
Summary 18
Summary 19
Summary 20
Summary 21
Summary 22
Summary 23
Summary 24
Summary 25
Summary 26
Summary 27
Summary 28
Summary 29
Summary 30
CHAPTER THREE Conclusions
While scientific research occurs in laboratories situated within national boundaries, the enterprise
is increasingly globalized as individuals cross boundaries, physically and virtually, for
education and work. Many scientific endeavors also require more resources than any single
nation can provide, and scientific queries, too, are increasingly multinational in nature (e.g.,
climate change and marine science).
The feedback we received from our 55 respondents provides a view of the current state
of S&T in Japan. Their individual impressions and experiences may be highly subjective and
anecdotal, but there appear to be broadly shared views on major strengths and hindrances in
the Japanese S&T system and where changes are most needed to improve excellence in Japanese
S&T.
Building excellence is not something that can happen overnight. Financial resource input
must be accompanied by determined leadership and a clear vision. Risks must be taken, and
the battle against established ways and norms could be long and difficult. Japan’s vision and
actions via its basic S&T plans began more than a decade ago. Some changes are yielding good
results and becoming visible to the international scientific community, as evidence by the data
we collected. At the same time, judging by the feedback we received, much more needs to be
done to make Japan more competitive, produce high-impact research, and be visible in the
global science community.
The recommendations we received from our 55 respondents closely echo what we learned
from the 52 scientists we interviewed for the 2004 study (Wong et al., 2004). For example,
both groups commented on a perceived bias toward application-oriented research in Japan,
that Japan generally excels in technology development, and that Japanese scientists are generally
good (and some outstanding) and meticulous in their work.
Similar, too, are their criticisms:
Japanese research lacks creativity and innovation.
Japanese research is largely invisible in the global S&T community.
Japanese students and researchers are not inclined to challenge orthodoxy.
Young Japanese researchers enjoy little freedom and independence in Japan’s hierarchical
social and research management structures.
Japan is not sufficiently attractive to foreign researchers.
Lack of proficiency in English among Japanese students and researchers is a major barrier
to international exchange and collaboration.
日本的真心话和大冒险
Differences in the observations of the experts we interviewed in the 2004 and 2008
studies lie mainly in the quality of specific observations (e.g., more respondents in this study
reported seeing some positive changes in Japan in terms of more opportunities available for
non-Japanese researchers to conduct research in Japan, a more visible effort by a few Japanese
institutions to push their researchers to publish in international journals, and how the virtual
absence of female researchers in Japan makes Japan a less attractive place to its own and foreign
talent at a time when Japan’s population is declining and the competition for scientific talent
is a global phenomenon).
One item that stands out in this effort is how much more the respondents said about the
rise of China (and, to a lesser degree, India) in S&T. Many respondents made explicit comparisons,
such as how they have seen many Chinese students and researchers going to study
or gain experience in research in the United States and Europe versus the small number who
apparently come out of Japan. Our respondents also appeared to be much more aware of the
significant investments the Chinese government is making to promote research and innovation
activities in China, including its effort to recruit foreign-trained Chinese scientists to work in
China.
In this connection, we also heard more from our respondents on their observations that
India, Ireland, Portugal, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and other countries have made notable
improvements in specific research areas or on a nationwide scale in recent years. Their rise
was not generally seen a threat to Japan or any other leading scientific countries. Rather, our
respondents cited these examples to demonstrate what determined efforts and enlightened policies
can accomplish within a matter of two to three decades and how capacity growth in these
countries expands sources for ideas and collaborators beyond the global leaders in science,
such as the United States, Britain, and Germany. Nevertheless, given the pace of change in the
global scientific community, input from our respondents suggests that the pace of change in
Japan, too, needs to hasten and that more deliberate and dramatic actions are important for
Japan to remain an important player in the international scientific enterprise.
Finally, this research provides a view of some major issues in S&T from the perspective of
a small number of leading scientists. While there is strong concurrence between our research
results in the 2004 study and this one, an in-depth investigation of their observations would
be needed to establish the validity of what was described to us and to properly characterize
them. Similarly, the recommendations provided by our experts would benefit from additional
research and analysis to explore whether they are appropriate and how they might be implemented
to improve Japanese S&T performance.
美国佬改变的山寨STYLE
日本基本国情汇编
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APPENDIX A Questionnaire for Interviews with Experts
1. What is the respondent’s career, and what is his or her professional relationship with
Japan?
a. Please provide a brief history of your career. What criteria guided your choice (your
discipline, specific focus of research, institutions for which you work)?
b. Have you ever considered working in a Japanese research institute, or have you worked
in one?
If yes, why, and describe that experience (e.g., a six-month research fellowship or a
three-year contract)? Were there any major problems or issues? Would you choose
to work again with Japanese collaborators and institutions? Why or why not?
If no, why not (e.g., what kept you from choosing to work in Japan? Was it salary,
budget, family reasons, visa issues, etc.)?
c. What should be changed in Japan to encourage international R&D collaborations
(e.g., from having international scientists and researchers working in Japan to joint
R&D activities between individuals/institutions inside and outside of Japan)?
What should be the near-term priorities?
What should be the long-term goals?
2. What is the competitiveness of Japanese institutions in their own disciplines and
research areas vis-a-vis other scientifically advanced nations?
a. From your perspective, which are the top institutions in Japan, and who are the top
scientists or researchers in their disciplines? (Name them.) If you are not familiar with
Japan, then which are the most improved institutions or countries in your field in the
world in the past five years? Why?
b. Where do you see changes in Japan—at the institutional and individual levels—in the
past five years? Are they good or bad, and why?
c. Where do you think that improvements should be made or had you expected them,
and why?
d. What are the indicators you used for your evaluation (e.g., direct experience working
in a Japanese laboratory or reading results of Japanese research in major scientific
publications)?
e. Do you expect Japan to reach or stay in the forefront of your discipline or specific areas
of research in the next five years? Why or why not?
3. How does the respondent think Japanese S&T capability compares with other scientifically
advanced nations, especially at public research institutions and universities,
with a focus on the items below? (If respondent does not know about Japan, ask which countries
or institutions are the best in the world or most improved in the past five years.)
a. in infrastructure, e.g., quality and access
b. in human capital, especially in the quantity and quality of young researchers, scientists,
and technical experts
c. in the management of organization, e.g., level of centralization
d. in the management of research, e.g., adequacy of personnel in numbers and quality
e. in national policy, e.g., on R&D funding
f. in producing groundbreaking research and commercializing research results.
4. What important or interesting accomplishments of Japanese scientific institutions—
government, academic, industry—has the respondent observed in his or her own disciplines
or research areas? (If respondent does not know about Japan, then ask which countries
or institutions are the most important or accomplished in the world in the past five years.)
a. What are they, and what makes them important or interesting (e.g., fundamentally
changing basic assumptions or a groundbreaking innovation)?
b. On what might this accomplishment be built—long-standing capacity or fairly new
capacity built in the past five years?
c. Is this accomplishment above or below what you would expect from Japan?
5. How does the quality of education in science and engineering at tertiary institutions
in Japan compare with other scientifically advanced nations (such as the United
States and the United Kingdom) and scientifically proficient nations (such as China
and India)? (If respondent does not know about Japan, ask what characterizes high-quality
education in science and mathematics in the best-performing countries/institutions in the world
in his or her fields, which countries or institutions have improved most in this regard in the past
five years, and what might be near- and long-term priorities for a country to achieve excellence
in this regard?)
a. What do you think are the strengths and weaknesses of instruction or training in your
discipline and S&T in general in Japan (to go beyond curriculum to include culture
and incentive structures)?
b. Have you seen changes for the better or worse within the past five years?
c. What do you think should be done to improve that quality?
near-term priorities?
long-term goals?
日本基本国情汇编
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APPENDIX B Summaries of Individual Interviews
The 55 summaries of individual interviews in this appendix provide a view of the responses
we received from these experts. In the interest of confidentiality, we removed their names
and other personally identifiable information. Nevertheless, we provide information on their
category/field, where they are based professionally, their career point, gender, whether they are
originally from Japan (that is, born, raised, or educated in Japan), and their level of professional
experience in Japan or with Japanese research to provide a context in which to interpret the
information we received from them.
宫崎骏《起风了》
学语言，从数数开始
日本基本国情汇编
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Summary 1
Field and Subfield(s): Life sciences; Agricultural science (1)
Location: EU
Status: Established
Gender: Male
Nationality: Non-Japanese
Professional experience in or with Japan: Low
What is the overall competitiveness of Japan in your area(s) of research, in general, and
what are Japan’s strengths in research?
Japan was rated as very competitive in biogenetics research. Japanese researchers were reported
to be simultaneously using their strengths and growing expertise in areas in which they are
weak. Japanese researchers were said to be particularly good in using informatics in production
processes. However, in the subarea within biogenetics in which the respondent specializes,
Japan was seen as lagging behind the world leaders despite producing some necessary materials,
and he thought that Japan does an especially good job with ionic membranes. No individual
top Japanese researchers were named, while Okayama University was cited as a leading world
center in his specialized area of research.
France was regarded a leader in some areas of research in biogenetics. The respondent
reported that his research group has been very satisfied with its partnerships with Japanese
researchers, whom the group members considered to be extremely hardworking. After a decade
of collaboration, the two sides agreed to have Japanese researchers visit his laboratory in France
(though not the other way around).
Partnerships between academia and industry in Japan were seen as a particular strength
for Japan. Such ties were reported to be much closer in Japan than in France, most of the rest
of Europe, and the United States. Japanese researchers, we were told, also benefit from strong
funding and a good level of administrative support.
On Japan’s graduate education institutions, in the absence of concrete knowledge about
it, the respondent thought they did a good job based on the high quality of Japanese scientists
with whom he has worked.
Japan was expected to stay at the forefront in his specialization, but he thought that Japan
needed to do better in biogenetics.
What do you think are the weaknesses or hindrances to greater excellence for Japan?
Japan was not regarded as strong in establishing the leading topics or issues in an area of
research. Rather, we were told, Japanese researchers tend to follow the leadership of other
countries.
What are your recommendations for Japan?
The respondent urged Japan to send even more Japanese researchers overseas to gain new
research experience.
日本基本国情汇编
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Summary 2
Field and Subfield(s): Life sciences; Agricultural science (2)
Location: EU
Status: Established
Gender: Male
Nationality: Non-Japanese
Professional experience in or with Japan: Low
What is the overall competitiveness of Japan in your area(s) of research, in general, and
what are Japan’s strengths in research?
In soil chemistry, Japan was ranked as a leading country, with the United States at the top of
the list. Yet, he said that he had not seen any major research accomplishment in Japan in the
past two decades.
The respondent expected U.S. leadership to become even stronger under the new U.S.
administration. Strong institutions outside the United States, in his opinion, include the Technical
University of Munich and Kiev University. In Japan, he said that there is a very good
researcher at Nagoya University. He said that he knows Japanese peers via the International
Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC). Having adequate research funding, in his
opinion, is the most critical requirement for leadership in soil chemistry. U.S. researchers,
said the respondent, have much better funding, and the United States has many more wellestablished
institutions. He said that funding in Spain has improved significantly and that
India is getting stronger, too. France, too, has strong funding, but it has fallen in the past
decade. Germany has an excellent funding system, but funds are limited. For Italy, absence of
a strong research policy has hindered its performance.
China, he thought, has strong potential to advance in soil chemistry research. Among
others, China was said to have many more scientists working in soil chemistry than other
countries. The next generation of Chinese research leaders in this field will have had graduate
education and research experience in the United States and the EU. While current Chinese
research funding is relatively low and the infrastructure remains basic, the respondent said that
the launch of new research initiatives, the establishment of centers of excellence, and the diligence
of Chinese researchers are all positive signs. He believed that China would become the
world leader in soil chemistry in another two decades.
He thought that U.S. leadership in soil chemistry might not be sustainable, since nearly
half of all Ph.D. students in the United States are not U.S. citizens and U.S. faculties are not
growing. What he thought was keeping the United States a leader in soil chemistry is its infrastructure
for research and the substantial funding available.
No comments were made on the quality of Japan’s education system. In terms of the U.S.
system, he did not think that U.S. schools did a very good job in teaching fundamental science,
as students can narrow their focus to specific subjects early in their training. In his view,
the first years of a student’s education should be much broader. Also, he believed that the environment
in the United States is so competitive that Ph.D. students frequently have no interests
other than their studies and have no time for social activities or communication with others.
The environment in Europe, we were told, is much more open and collaborative.
What do you think are the weaknesses or hindrances to greater excellence for Japan?
Lack of proficiency in English among Japanese researchers was cited as the main problem.
Although the respondent has seen improvement in the past 20 years, he believed that there
remains room for improvement. Lack of proficiency in English among Japanese researchers
was one of his reasons for choosing to visit the United States over Japan (another being Japan’s
distance from Europe).
What are your recommendations for Japan?
The main recommendation was for Japan to become more open. Our respondent said that
Japan should welcome EU, U.S., and Asian scientists to do research in Japan. At the same time,
he thought that Japan should become involved in international research programs, exchange of
scientific visits, and collaborations. To successfully attract non-Japanese scientists, our respondent
said that Japan needs top-quality institutions, excellent professors, and good infrastructure.
Further, a first step would be to create a very strong fellowship program and publicize it
worldwide to attract the best talent, and the fellowship must have competitive financial and
nonfinancial incentives to attract researchers from the United States and EU.
The respondent emphasized that Japanese researchers must improve their proficiency in
English and publish more in international journals. Japanese researchers should also be members
of international associations and attend those associations’ international meetings.
While creating centers of excellence may be useful, the respondent said that Japan should
also invest resources in smaller research units that are scattered across the country doing niche
research. In his view, centers of excellence have certain limitations: (1) they cannot grow beyond
a certain size; (2) they cannot absorb smaller, more-innovative research units.
日本基本国情汇编
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Summary 3
Field and Subfield(s): Life sciences; Agricultural science (3)
Location: U.S.
Status: Established
Gender: Male
Nationality: Non-Japanese
Professional experience in or with Japan: Low
What is the overall competitiveness of Japan in your area(s) of research, in general, and
what are Japan’s strengths in research?
The respondent said that he was not well informed about agricultural science research in Japan
so he could not comment on the caliber of research in Japan.
Internationally, findings on genetic traits of corn, soybeans, and cotton, as well as the
development of natural insecticides, are significant advances, he said, because of their direct
practical implications on how crops are managed.
He ranked the United States at the top of the field of agronomy, followed by Germany,
France, and the UK. Australia and New Zealand were also said to be producing good
research. He attributes U.S. strength partly to an emphasis on “mission-oriented research,”
which is intended to have a direct impact on the economy, and not just “research for the sake
of research.” Also, he said that federal and private funding in the United States has produced
substantial advancements in genetics and improved management practices and that all this has
contributed to a greater understanding of the roles of nutrients and tillage. He said that the
U.S. Department of Agriculture had reorganized its competitive funding to focus on bioenergy
crops, an emphasis that is also found in private-sector investment. Thus, in his view, a huge
investment in research has propelled the United States to the top of the world. Yet, this leadership
is now declining as federal funding falls flat or declines. He added that declining graduate
enrollments would mean fewer people working in this field in the future.
In comparison, he said, China and India are emerging powers in agriculture research. In
his view, these countries are developing their research programs by investing heavily in infrastructure,
R&D, and collaborations with leading international scientists. He specifically noted
that China, in particular, is working with experts in the United States and Europe to bring
technologies to China for further development. He said that both China and India are producing
many young scientists in this field and launching them into careers. China, in particular,
he observed, is training many of its people overseas.
Argentina and Brazil were also said to be benefiting from significant private-sector support.
These two countries, along with the United States and New Zealand, were said to have
done a good job in commercializing their research. New Zealand, he said, has even removed
subsidies for agriculture and created a privatized research system with close links to industry.
In his view, this approach works work well in New Zealand because it is a small country with a
small set of industries that can benefit directly from its scientific endeavors, but the New Zealand
approach might not be transferable to other countries.
What do you think are the weaknesses or hindrances to greater excellence for Japan?
He said that the language issue is likely a barrier for most non-Japanese researchers who would
consider working in Japan, including himself.
What are your recommendations for Japan?
He said that scientists need, in addition to money, freedom to question and use ways they
deem appropriate to their research queries. He said that scientists need to be allowed to fail
and learn from their failure. If scientists are risk-averse, he said, they can generate only incremental
advances. He believed that only when scientists take risks do they create new ideas and
produce “wild ideas that pay.” He said he thinks that the United States is moving away from
such a system.
Next, he said, money can be used to motivate collaboration because scientists will go
where grants are offered. For example, New Zealand’s national fellowships pay for sabbaticals
overseas. Such schemes, he said, are helpful because most professors cannot afford to pay for
sabbaticals abroad. Another example he provided was the U.S. Fulbright Program that sends
U.S. faculty overseas and brings foreign experts to the United States.
Finally, he said, students need to have good math and science skills and to be engaged
in the process of science from an early age. He said that figuring out how to do this and keep
this engaging for youths could be challenging. He saw that the U.S. education system basically
“takes something inherently fun and exciting and turns it into something boring.” In the early
grades, he counseled, instead of learning science from a book with abstract concepts, students
should go into nature and count and observe. He said that students should be encouraged to
ask questions and look for answers on their own. In addition, he said, students could learn
math and science by engaging with the world in which they live (e.g., equations can correspond
to practical concepts). The overall effect, he said, is to capture the imagination and develop
natural curiosity. He cited the “Planting Science” program of the Botanical Society of America
as accomplishing this. He explained that this is an online mentoring program in which scientists
work with middle-school students to develop and implement experiments. Further, he
said, curriculum at the high-school and college levels could include food and nutrition and
provide students opportunities for hands-on use of tools and concepts to get them interested
in agricultural science.
日本基本国情汇编
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Summary 4
Summary 4
Field and Subfield(s): Life sciences; Biology and biochemistry (1)
Location: EU
Status: Established
Gender: Male
Nationality: Non-Japanese
Professional experience in or with Japan: Low
What is the overall competitiveness of Japan in your area(s) of research, in general, and
what are Japan’s strengths in research?
The respondent said that he has not noticed any change in the quality of research from Japan in
the past five years, although he would be equally unprepared to detail changes in any country
within such a time frame.
The only exception, he said, was Ireland, where he had seen significant investment in
recent years, but research outcomes will take a few more years to become evident. He noted
in particular Ireland’s improvement in infrastructure and in recruiting young researchers who
have completed their Ph.D. or postdoctoral work in the United States. He said that he does
not know details about the Japanese education system. The main impression he had was that it
stands out in teaching students to become members of groups rather than individuals. Overall,
he said, how students are instructed could differ by institution and discipline. Many Western
European countries, he said, appear to be more successful at the undergraduate level, while the
U.S. system is stronger at the Ph.D. and postdoc levels.
What do you think are the weaknesses or hindrances to greater excellence for Japan?
The respondent said that Japanese researchers seem to be a bit removed from the rest of the
world—that is, there is little interaction between Japanese researchers and their peers outside
of Japan. He said that he has had far more interactions with Taiwanese research groups than
he has with Japanese ones. He said that there are Japanese colleagues whom he would meet at
annual meetings, but he could not specify top scientists or institutions in Japan.
Another weakness, he said, might be the education system in Japan. While the system
appears capable of produce top-quality researchers, he said the system produces group thinkers
rather than individualists. In his view, this could hinder Japan’s success to foster leading scientists
who are capable of defining the important questions in the field.
What are your recommendations for Japan?
Overall, he said, having a good S&T policy can make a large difference in research outcomes.
A key element of a good S&T policy, in his view, should be the establishment of a Westernstyle
tenure system. He said that, in some places (e.g., the Netherlands), researchers get a
permanent position without a “trial” period and might then be tempted not to do any more
significant work until retirement. In contrast, in the U.S. system, researchers are first granted a
temporary position to test them out. When tenure is not automatic, it gives more opportunities
to younger researchers, and that merit-based competition is good for science.
For Japan specifically, he said that expanding exchange programs for Japanese and foreign
students and researchers at all levels would be beneficial. He added that such exchange
programs should begin as early as possible to improve English language proficiency, which is
a bottleneck in international collaborations for many Japanese researchers. He said that programs
that support two-year stay abroad for young researchers—with an obligation to return
to Japan—would also be desirable, as would increasing attendance of and presentations at
international meetings by Japanese scientists.
Finally, he said that Japanese research would benefit from having reduced hierarchies and
“affirmative action” programs like those in many European countries, to increase the presence
of women in science. In his view, flattening hierarchies and getting more women into science
would take time—as the experience in Europe shows—but it would make a positive difference
over time.
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Summary 5
Summary 5
Field and Subfield(s): Life sciences; Biology and biochemistry (2)
Location: EU
Status: Established
Gender: Female
Nationality: Non-Japanese
Professional experience in or with Japan: Low
What is the overall competitiveness of Japan in your area(s) of research, in general, and
what are Japan’s strengths in research?
The respondent considered Japanese institutions to be well positioned in her field. Her opinion
was based largely on her observations at the conference of the Society for Free Radical Biology
and Medicine, where “there are always plenty of Japanese researchers attending [who] are
delivering high-quality research.” She was, however, unable to name any institution in Japan or
any Japanese researcher that particularly stands out. She did not think that there have been any
significant changes in Japan in the past five years. When she visited Japan, the infrastructure
and other prerequisites for conducting research seemed to be very good.
Currently, in her opinion, the most successful country in her field is the United States,
while Ireland is the country that has most improved in the past five years. Ten years ago, Ireland
had poor infrastructure but very good undergraduate training, so people would leave for
careers overseas. The Irish government changed the corporation tax to attract pharmaceutical
and technology companies, which now employ many scientists. At the same time, Ireland
undertook a drive to improve the scientific facilities, building new and very well-equipped
institutes, and focused on recruiting researchers from all over the world, but targeting expatriates
in particular. Salaries and research funds in Ireland have been very generous ever since.
There were some starting difficulties, as the “old” people suddenly received large amounts of
money and did not know what to do with it, but these problems were resolved after about two
years, when researchers from abroad arrived.
She believes that the quality of education in Ireland is very high. She also mentioned
Uruguay, where she believes that the quality of the students and their intellectual maturity
surpasses that of the students in the UK. However, she suggested, this may be because students
in Uruguay are older than those in the UK (e.g., obtaining Ph.D.’s at the age of 30, rather than
24).
What do you think are the weaknesses or hindrances to greater excellence for Japan?
During her visit, the respondent had one unfavorable impression of Japan. She had made the
initial contact with the male Japanese researcher whom she and her male colleague visited in
Kyoto. She suspects, at that point, he did not know that she was female. When they visited, he
talked directly only to her male colleague and not to her.
What are your recommendations for Japan?
According to the respondent, the quality of people and institutions in Ireland has “incredibly
improved” from ten years ago. She believes that Ireland, given the policies enacted by the Irish
government, could be “a very good case study for any country that seeks to beef up its science
and technology capacity.”
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Summary 6
Summary 6
Field and Subfield(s): Life sciences; Biology and biochemistry (3)
Location: U.S.
Status: Rising star
Gender: Female
Nationality: Non-Japanese
Professional experience in or with Japan: Moderate
What is the overall competitiveness of Japan in your area(s) of research, in general, and
what are Japan’s strengths in research?
The respondent rated Japan’s research in biology as not only competitive with the best in the
world, but also rapidly improving, with the potential to reach the top. She put Japan currently
as fourth in the world in productivity and behind the United States, Britain, and Germany in
innovation. However, barring economic collapse, she said, the United States is likely to continue
its dominance in the field in the short term. To get to the top, she counseled, resources
and innovation are essential.
China was said to be investing heavily in research to create preeminent research, with
Chinese resources seeming to be very focused on supporting China’s top researchers. Further,
to improve its research programs, China is encouraging its people to study and train abroad.
In her view, China’s massive research investments, in money and people, could move China to
the top position in the world.
As for Japan’s scientific achievements, she reported that Japan has made key contributions
to microscopy technology, particularly in the areas of atomic force microscopy and fluorescent
techniques. She noted that these technologies did not originate in Japan. In her view, Japan is
not a source of groundbreaking innovation but is good at building on existing technology and
making it more accessible.
The respondent said that she would be interested in conducting research or taking a sabbatical
in Japan to learn more about these techniques or to obtain technical training. She said
that she values the emphasis on technological development in Japan and described Japanese
researchers as efficient and eager to embrace technology. She believes that what she could learn
in Japan would complement opportunities in the United States.
She said that significant research is being done at Kyoto University and at RIKEN, and
she emphasized that RIKEN seems particularly supportive of the work of young scientists by
allowing them greater independence in developing their research and in seeking collaborations.
Kobe University and Osaka University, too, she reported, have good research programs, and
a few particularly strong scientists in her field can be found at the University of Tokyo. In the
case of the University of Tokyo, she said that established researchers appear to actively mentor
young scientists.
In terms of resources in Japan, she reported her impression that at least some individuals
seem to have good funding and access to infrastructure. She believes that existing Japanese
programs to encourage international collaborations are having a positive effect and help to send
many Japanese postdoctoral researchers abroad.
What do you think are the weaknesses or hindrances to greater excellence for Japan?
In her view, it is a “cultural and not a scientific issue” that creates barriers to collaboration, so
that she would hesitate to work for long periods in Japan.
One problem, she said, is the language barrier. She reported that, in her experience, Japanese
scientists have good written English skills but are difficult to communicate with orally
even if they can speak English. Also, she said that she is wary of how Japanese attitudes toward
women might affect her. She said that these attitudes are reflected the relatively small number
of leading female scientists in Japan. Also, she said that cultural mores in Japan make it particularly
difficult for women to balance family and work.
An “anti-individualist” mindset, in her opinion, is another cultural hindrance in Japan’s
drive for top-level scientific success. She said that science is driven by individual creativity and
that ambition drives scientists toward groundbreaking goals. She added that, when a culture
does not reward these characteristics, excellence is elusive.
The Japanese system was described as very hierarchical. The respondent said that, when
young scientists are constrained to work under more-established scientists, they may lack access
to infrastructure or funding independent of senior researchers and that this might prevent
them from pursuing their own research ideas. In a hierarchical culture, she added, any questioning
of authority is also discouraged, making it even more difficult to take new directions
in research. In sum, she said, the Japanese system “doesn’t foster independence and creativity,”
both of which she believes are key components to scientific breakthroughs.
Japanese power structures and cultural deference to authority may also be deleterious to
training young scientists. In her view, currently, most Japanese students do not question their
mentors, simply doing as they are told, with the result that they do not acquire independent
research skills. Also, students generally have little control over what they work on. She said
one of her current students, a Japanese national, decided to go overseas to study because there
is little room for creativity in Japan. Nevertheless, in some cases, the respondent said that the
Japanese focus on team-driven research might be helpful for collaborative research.
What are your recommendations for Japan?
She said that Japan should take steps to reward innovation, particularly by young researchers.
She cited the example of National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant programs that are specifically
designed to encourage high-risk, innovative research. She said that, even if funds are
limited so that only a small number of researchers receive support, it might still encourage a
culture of innovation by showing that creativity is valued and demonstrate that mechanisms
for funding higher-risk research do exist.
She said that Japan’s research program would be improved if more opportunities were
provided for younger scientists to branch out on their own and if funding—the criteria for
which was difficult for her to lay out—was specifically provided for creative ideas. She reported
that her impression is that most funding for students in Japan seems to be tied to researchers.
She said that, if students have their own funding, they would be less beholden to their laboratories
and could be more independent.
Collaboration, in her view, might also help to produce more innovative research. She said
that broad-based government exchange programs that are well publicized, are inclusive, and
have clear criteria for awards would encourage participation.
Overall, she said, she believes that the situation is improving for young Japanese scientists,
and she sees them developing independent and successful research programs. To complement
their scientific training, Japanese scientists should improve their writing skills, the instruction
of which, she said, should be a part of formal training for all scientists in Japan (and other
countries).
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Summary 7
Summary 7
Field and Subfield(s): Life sciences; Biology and biochemistry (4)
Location: U.S.
Status: Established
Gender: Male
Nationality: Non-Japanese
Professional experience in or with Japan: Low
What is the overall competitiveness of Japan in your area(s) of research, in general, and
what are Japan’s strengths in research?
The respondent rated Japan as doing high-quality research in molecular biology and genetics,
but the United States and UK were said to be far ahead of the rest in this field. Depending
on the subarea, Japan was said to rank third through tenth in the world. The respondent said
that he has not noticed changes in Japan’s research capacity over the past five years but that he
might not know enough about research activities in Japan for changes to be apparent to him.
He expected Japan to remain in the top tier of countries but not at the very top. In his opinion,
Japanese scientists are “doing decent science.”
His choice of the top institutions in Japan includes Kyoto University, Kobe University,
and Osaka University. The three universities, he said, are a “research triangle that has been
strong for a while.” Kyoto University, he noted, is particularly strong in molecular and cellular
biology; Kobe University, in developmental biology. He described Japanese research with
stem cells as groundbreaking and credited Shinya Yamanaka for bringing Japan to the top of
this area. Although not relevant to his field, the respondent identified RIKEN as a world-class
institution for neuroscience.
China is moving up, according to the respondent. He said that the Chinese are improving
their research capacity by sending many young scientists abroad for training and successfully
bringing them back to China. He said that this contrasts sharply with Japan, whose number of
Japanese postdoctoral fellows in North America seems to have declined over the past 20 years.
The Chinese were also said to be investing substantially in infrastructure and research. Finally,
the Chinese researchers were described as generally more aggressive and independent. These
qualities, the respondent said, help to produce better research.
What do you think are the weaknesses or hindrances to greater excellence for Japan?
The respondent said that cultural and language differences make it relatively difficult for foreigners
to work in Japan. Also, he said that the structure at research institutions in Japan (and
Germany) is more hierarchical than in North America. This makes Japan unappealing for
young scientists who want to have scientific independence and access to their own resources.
Further, he said, research is “too managed” in the hierarchical system in Japan. The
respondent took the view that “scientists are best when left to get on with their own thing.” He
described the hierarchical system as good for people at the top tier, who would get good access
to resources. The downside of such a system, though, is that it could impede the discovery process
if researchers are less driven to strike out in their own directions. Even in the case of the
genome project, for which a team-centered approach might be expected to work well, he said,
Japanese scientists were not particularly effective.
The respondent said that resources for successful research are available in Japan but again
that the hierarchical structure makes it difficult for lower-level researchers to access them. He
also commented that Japan, like most of the research world, is too concerned with translating
research into industrial products. He noted that Americans do this well because they have different
people doing their own specialized tasks, with venture capitalists involved in the commercialization
processes.
Language is a barrier (perhaps the only one) to collaborations between people inside and
outside of Japan. For the Japanese side, having the ability to communicate in English can make
a substantial difference in a Japanese researcher’s ability to have a presence internationally and
allow him or her to engage in international collaborations. Also, he said, much of Japanese
research is published only in Japanese, so that non-Japanese speakers are not fully aware of
progress in Japan, and that this hinders engagement with Japanese researchers. For the non-
Japanese side, language and cultural barriers make it difficult to work in Japan—though he
thinks that it is generally difficult to get North Americans to leave for postdoctoral positions
overseas in general.
What are your recommendations for Japan?
If Japan’s S&T research is to improve, he said, Japanese education, beginning from the primary
level, must encourage students to “question and challenge authority and assumptions.”
The respondent felt that the Japanese are very proficient scientists and well educated, better
than Americans in some ways. However, he said, students in the United States are trained to
be more independent, which he believes often makes them better scientists.
He commented that the Japanese reluctance to question authority or assumptions is
related to the hierarchical structure and respect for authority that is present in Japanese culture.
In training scientists, he emphasized that more time should be spent on experiments and
less on learning facts. He added that the focus should be on identifying “what we don’t know
rather than what we do know,” because future scientists will need to extend scientific knowledge
rather than simply repeat it.
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Summary 8
Summary 8
Field and Subfield(s): Life sciences; Clinical medicine (1)
Location: EU
Status: Rising star
Gender: Female
Nationality: Non-Japanese
Professional experience in or with Japan: Low
What is the overall competitiveness of Japan in your area(s) of research, in general, and
what are Japan’s strengths in research?
The respondent did not regard Japan as at the forefront of her research in molecular parasitology.
She reported the presence of few research groups working on the area in Japan and that
only the work by groups at the University of Tokyo deserve any attention. Considering Japan’s
size, she said, such numbers are far too low. She described researchers in Japan as committed
and diligent and recalled her reaction to reading a Japanese research paper as “this [work]
would have taken me a whole year!” However, she said that Japanese research lacks creativity.
While that may be the situation inside Japan, the respondent said that she knows of Japanese
researchers who are established and doing well in the United States, as well as one who
works at the Institut Pasteur in France. She said that this Japanese researcher told her that he
left Japan because the hierarchical structure in Japan would keep him from pursuing his own
independent research.
She ranked the top countries in her field as the United States, Britain, and Australia. She
attributed their success to a combination of quality graduate education, funding, and links
with the private sector. In her opinion, the U.S. system excels because it is large and researchers
enjoy a high level of freedom and financial support. The European system, by comparison,
is more rigid, and younger people usually work on problems identified by their supervisors or
tutors and receive less-generous funding and timelines to conduct their work. She cautioned
that, while the U.S. system may be seen as a model for emulation, she said that she believes that
each country needs to design its own system, one that is sensitive to the financial, cultural, and
other constraints that are present.
She highlighted Ireland as having made clear improvements in the past decade, although,
she said, she was not well informed about the policies that brought about these changes. She
said that the Irish presence in conferences and seminars, the number and quality of their publications,
and the amount of money entering Ireland to support research are all impressive. She
said that Portugal, to some extent, is following Ireland’s example. Like Ireland, it is attracting a
critical mass of young researchers from the United States and Britain who are very competitive
at the international level. She said that Portugal’s membership in the EU has also helped the
country to improve domestic conditions to bring back to Portugal a critical mass of young and
promising Portuguese scientists who have overseas education and work experience.
What do you think are the weaknesses or hindrances to greater excellence for Japan?
Based on her experience interacting with Japanese researchers, she said, the education system
in Japan probably does not foster creativity. For example, she described Japanese researchers
with whom she had interacted as usually slow to question ideas and results.
She said that conclusions of a recent conference she attended in France on ways to improve
research in Japan highlighted several problems: too many universities, too many universities
doing the same things, “jobs for life,” and too many organizations supporting science.
Another problem, she said, is the apparent absence of Japanese female researchers in her
field. She said that it is very difficult for women in Japan to become researchers. Women, she
said, are largely confined to being technicians, only because of concerns that they will leave
their careers to become mothers. She said that a female Japanese scientist she knows who has
done well in the United States is unlikely to obtain a leadership position in Japan. She added
that she is disappointed to see women in Japanese laboratories not complaining about their
treatment.
A final weakness she observed is that Japanese Ph.D. program graduates in her field do
not seem to pursue overseas postdoctoral research opportunities. She thought that they did
not do so because it would not help them to advance their careers in Japan. She said that the
Japanese system is so hierarchical that additional experience as postdoctoral researchers probably
would not help them to obtain better positions than as assistants under senior researchers.
What are your recommendations for Japan?
Funding is essential, she emphasized, because laboratories and infrastructure play substantive
roles in her area of research. However, there is no one right way to fund research, because
conditions differ in each country. In the United States, she said, research endowments play a
big role; in Britain, charities are a major funding source, and she said that the Irish experience
might also be worth examining.
Another priority, in her view, is to aggressively and immediately raise proficiency in English
and improve communication skills.
An ideal system, in her opinion, would include (1) student access to scientists and researchers
beginning at the undergraduate level; (2) money to attract the right people from all over the
world; and (3) collaboration and exchange with the rest of the world so students and researchers
could learn about different approaches to and cultures of science. She said that international
collaboration and exchange, in particular, would help to foster creativity and a critical view
of current ideas. She underscored that Japanese students and researchers should be exposed to
different ideas and encouraged to question themselves. She described the European Science
Foundation’s perspective that science is universal, leading it to strongly support international
collaboration. Such perspectives and funding opportunities in Europe, she said, might offer
Japanese researchers opportunities for more international exchanges and collaboration.
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Summary 9
Summary 9
Field and Subfield(s): Life sciences; Immunology (1)
Location: U.S.
Status: Established
Gender: Female
Nationality: Non-Japanese
Professional experience in or with Japan: High
What is the overall competitiveness of Japan in your area(s) of research, in general, and
what are Japan’s strengths in research?
In terms of productivity (number of publications), the respondent placed Japan in the top
20 percent of “research-developed countries.” In terms of innovation (quality of research),
Japan was rated only as belonging to the top 50 percent.
She said that there are several good universities in Tokyo and Kyoto, with Japanese leaders
in the field, including Tasuko Honjo and Tadatsugu Taniguchi. She said that the Japanese
leaders in the field of whom she is aware are all close to retirement. She said that she was unsure
of the current state of the Japanese research program, partially because of her lessened contact
with Japanese researchers over the past decade. In her opinion, the Japanese are less interested
in immunology now and more focused on such fields as molecular biology and neuroscience.
For instance, she reported seeing fewer Japanese postdoctoral research fellows in North
America these days. She said that more students and postdoctoral researchers are coming to the
United States from China, India, and Eastern Europe.
On major Japanese scientific achievements, she described Japan as doing high-level work
in the cytokine field (e.g., cloning genes for certain cytokines) in the 1990s. She added that
some interleukins were discovered in Japan (e.g., interleukin 5) and explained that these successes
were often the result of joint work with the United States. She said that the best work in
immunology is now done in the United States and Britain, with good work also occurring in
such countries as Switzerland, France, and Australia. Countries that have strengthened their
programs recently were said to include Switzerland, Italy, and France. The respondent said that
she was not aware of the details of how these countries strengthened their programs but that
she knows that they are training many people abroad and appear to recognize the need for
more effort. She said that the economic downturn is depressing research efforts worldwide, and
she expected people to leave the field as funding dries up.
The respondent saw the structure of research in Japan as very different from that in the
United States, based on her interactions with Japanese scientists who are heads of laboratories.
She described the structure in Japan as having “emperors” run laboratories. In her view, individuals
work for little pay under their leaders, merely “do as they’re told,” and are more eager
to please and produce data than to have their own opinion. In such settings, laboratory directors
produce almost all the creative ideas. Further, she said, she has not seen leaders helping
those beneath them to rise up and expand their skills. Thus, a highly hierarchical system, in
her view, is a limitation of the Japanese research program. She said that “fighting about things”
(that is, competition of ideas) rather than “respecting the boss” is more conducive to producing
creative research.
She described Japan as extremely strong in efforts that require strength in numbers
because Japan has many highly efficient workers. Thus, Japan has found research success in
molecular biology, genetics, and drug screening. In fact, in her opinion, it is hard to compete
with large Japanese groups in manpower-intensive efforts. However, she said, Japan is less successful
at projects that require innovation and creativity.
She said that she was unable to comment in detail about the availability of infrastructure
in Japan. Although it appeared to her that many researchers have access to high-quality equipment,
she was unsure whether these resources are available to all scientists or just to those in
the top-tier laboratories. She also professed little knowledge of other elements of the Japanese
research system other than knowing that industry research efforts have also produced payoffs.
She said that companies in Japan are more willing to set up an institute and let it run independently
than is the case in the United States and that academic and industry research ties in
Japan help the commercialization process. She said that U.S. firms tend to keep their research
efforts in-house and that some policies of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration can hinder
commercialization. Fewer regulations in Japan, in her view, present less of a bottleneck in commercializing
research results.
In general, the respondent believed, the major Japanese contributions were achieved
through great force of effort rather than through establishing a new way of doing or looking
at things.
What do you think are the weaknesses or hindrances to greater excellence for Japan?
In her view, language and culture—specifically, biases against women—are the largest barriers
to increased collaboration. She reported experiencing language and communication problems
with Japanese researchers, whom she viewed as often less eager to share research details than
Western scientists. She said that young Japanese researchers would benefit from spending time
overseas to improve their English language and communication skills. During her visits to
Japan and in her interaction with Japanese researchers in conferences and NIH panels, she also
said that women were treated very differently than men and often excluded from activities. In
her own experience, she was not invited to some social events, but her male peers were. Since it
is extremely difficult to change culture, she believes that younger Japanese researchers should
be encouraged to work in foreign laboratories to push them to think creatively rather than just
doing the work.
Also, she said, the competitive and male-driven culture in Japan makes it extremely difficult
for women to become researchers. She said that she does not know of any female scientists
in her field in Japan and that Japanese female postdoctoral researchers she knows do not
seem to stay in the field because women are often “not allowed” at the top levels. She said that
discrimination against women, in her view, means that Japan is not using half of its creative
workforce in science.
Given these problems or issues, the respondent said that she would hesitate to work in
Japan, even for a sabbatical position.
The hierarchical research structure in Japan was also described as a barrier. Thus, she
did not believe that she would be able to undertake independent research if she were in Japan.
The emphasis on respect for authority, in her view, does not encourage creative alternatives in
problem solving or thinking about new problems. She said that it is difficult to teach people
how to be creative and challenge authority. Even in the United States, it has taken some time.
In U.S. universities, she said, junior faculty doing creative work can inspire and be role models
to students. She believes that, in Japan, persons in positions of authority feel less comfortable
asking junior people to challenge current thinking. She said that this is less the case in the
United States.
What are your recommendations for Japan?
To inspire more innovation, she said, young Japanese scientists need to be educated differently.
Since culture changes slowly, having more Japanese scientists train abroad—even if it is only a
part of their Ph.D. program—would help to introduce to Japan a new culture of creativity. If
this process is allowed to thrive, she said, it might spur a greater emphasis on innovation and
encourage more Japanese researchers to do more creative projects.
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Summary 10
Summary 10
Field and Subfield(s): Life sciences; Microbiology (1)
Location: U.S.
Status: Established
Gender: Male
Nationality: Non-Japanese
Professional experience in or with Japan: Moderate
What is the overall competitiveness of Japan in your area(s) of research, in general, and
what are Japan’s strengths in research?
The respondent thought that Japan’s research in marine biology was good but not top tier in
quality. Notable research was said to occur at JAMSTEC, and Ken Takai was named a young
and up-and-coming scientist.
Japan, surrounded by the sea, was said to have a long tradition of studying marine biology
and investing in infrastructure (e.g., recently, in a deep-sea drilling vessel). The “stereotype” of
Japanese technical expertise rung true to him (i.e., Japanese researchers “pick up technology
and run with it” but are weaker in innovation). He found Japan stronger in implementation
and development of existing ideas.
The United States, Britain, and Germany were identified as the leaders in his field. U.S.
leadership, he said, had resulted from strong funding, but support has been falling and the
old infrastructure is deteriorating. Bottlenecks in data storage and analysis also demand a
new computational infrastructure. Further, the United States suffers from gender inequality
in his field and underperforms in some subareas (e.g., environmental research and blocking
research into stem cells). Finally, he thought, the big U.S. laboratories (e.g., those run by the
U.S. Department of Energy [DOE]), can be extremely effective in their focus on big questions,
but they can be beset with problems in management, personnel, and quality control, so that
sustaining excellence is never guaranteed.
Notable improvement was observed in research programs in Chile, Brazil, and Mexico,
among others. Their improvement, the respondent said, resulted from their deliberate import
of knowledge by inviting experts from abroad to teach summer courses and sending their students
overseas for education. These countries may not enjoy the same financial support and
infrastructure as the top countries, but, he said, they are doing a great job at achieving targeted
goals. Their emphasis on applied S&T, in this case, supports their development goals (e.g.,
genomics for agriculture and oceanography for managing fisheries).
He also said that the United States does well in commercializing research in established
areas (e.g., engineering). In other areas, the United States still has to determine how to commercialize
research without allowing “silly patents,” such as for each and every gene in molecular
biology, pharmacology, and other growth areas. Another challenge, in his view, is in identifying
real innovation, and trying to commercialize everything could bog down the system and
generate little profit for investors and the scientific enterprise as a whole.
Therefore, he said, the U.S. government must be careful to make sure innovation serves
practical purposes (e.g., funding for human health research via the NIH). Funding for basic
science, in his view, is also important because it is often difficult to predict where the next
major innovations will come from, adding that many high-impact applications do not come
from applied science. Thus, President George W. Bush’s efforts to bolster basic science through
programs of the National Science Foundation (NSF) and DOE were beneficial.
In his opinion, much of the innovative and top-tier research in the United States comes
out of academia, so that the U.S. university system is the dominant player in research activities.
Although the system is competitive and professors get a lot out of their students, he was uncertain
how elements of the U.S. system (e.g., national laboratories) might transfer or translate to
another system. He said that another model that seems to work well is the one used by the Max
Planck Institute in Germany, which focuses on specific topics, provides strong funding, and
uses the best people to manage projects to produce high-quality work in the targeted areas. In
his view, the Max Planck Institute is more flexible in how it approaches research problems than
the national laboratories under DOE.
He said that he would consider a short-term sabbatical in Japan because he believes that
Japanese researchers are doing some very interesting work and that Japan has, in particular,
innovative programs in deep-sea biology. Further, he said, he values the potential access to
useful technology (e.g., oceanographic platforms) in Japan. Outside of research, he said that he
is also interested in firsthand exposure to Japanese culture.
What do you think are the weaknesses or hindrances to greater excellence for Japan?
In his view, Japan’s research is not as strong in terms of innovation. He said that private research
laboratories that are run like industrial organizations have the advantage that the director can
steer the ship. However, he said, this setup is good for strategic targeting but not necessarily for
innovation, and added that engineering responds better to a top-down approach than science,
which needs more “wiggle room” for innovation. Thus, he said, giving researchers funds and
freedom to conduct independent research is a better model for innovation.
What are your recommendations for Japan?
The respondent had several thoughts.
First, he said, having mixed approaches can be helpful in promoting S&T—specifically,
attack important, difficult problems with a top-down approach, and simultaneously allow
independence in research (bottom up) to create innovation.
Second, he said, research programs need to recognize that many important questions
extend beyond traditional disciplinary boundaries. While the United States has done well in
developing research and education side by side, and universities have done so within disci plines, he said, they have not done a good job at expanding boundaries with interdisciplinary
programs. He gave the example of climate issues, which, he said, need to be dealt with from
the perspective of many disciplines, such as computer science, planetary science, geology and
oceanography, and others. Further, both research and education need to cross disciplines. He
said that one way to accomplish this would be more flexibility in evaluating young faculty for
tenure beyond the traditional boundaries of disciplines.
In this connection, he said, collaborative research might help to foster interdisciplinary
research. In his view, top-down programs could work in some instances (e.g., a program in
Singapore that targets researchers at top institutions worldwide and invites them to spend six
months to a year in Singapore). However, such programs can create problems for the sending
institution when researchers on leave might need backfill to teach their classes or assume other
responsibilities. On the positive side, participants in such a program, he said, could learn from
the experience of working with other participants and produce work together.
Nevertheless, he said that collaborations are often best when they originate from the
bottom up—that is, when individual researchers find useful partnerships on their own. In his
view, bottom-up collaborative processes often create the most-complementary collaborations.
He added that incentives for bottom-up collaboration could help (e.g., a program in Spain
makes international collaboration a requirement for research grants and researchers identify
their own collaborative partners). Collaborative elements might also include partners visiting
each other’s laboratories and sending their students to train in a partner’s laboratory. He said
that there are mechanisms in the EU that encourage collaboration between laboratories in
member countries that are more advanced scientifically with those that are less advanced scientifically.
He added that such types of multi-institution collaborations can be exciting and fun.
However, communication across institutions can be difficult, even with virtual meeting
technology. He said that improving how information technology is used to support collaboration
would be helpful. In his experience, today’s approaches are not good enough, so researchers
must physically travel to effectively communicate in person. If virtual collaboration could be
more easily facilitated, research, industry, and education would all benefit by allowing people
to share ideas, have more-fruitful interactions, and doing it in a less costly way than traveling.
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Summary 11
Summary 11
Field and Subfield(s): Life sciences; Molecular biology and genetics (1)
Location: U.S.
Status: Rising star
Gender: Male
Nationality: Non-Japanese
Professional experience in or with Japan: Moderate
What is the overall competitiveness of Japan in your area(s) of research, in general, and
what are Japan’s strengths in research?
The respondent rated Japan as excellent in genomics (e.g., its contributions to extensive expressed
sequence tag sequencing). Another noteworthy Japanese achievement, he said, is the develop
ment of the silk moth as a model organism. In many cases, he said, Japan’s achievements in
genomics resulted from Japanese scientists holding to their original plans despite skepticism.
In the United States, he said, choosing to use alternative approaches might not have secured
funding from agencies.
The respondent named RIKEN and the University of Tokyo as the top institutions producing
high-quality work—for the former, despite its small size. He said that Japanese universities
are generally producing good work but that the top-quality work in the biomolecular
sciences is found in the United States and is substantially better. In the biomolecular sciences,
he ranked the United States at the top, followed by the UK and Germany, then Japan in
the fourth position. In Europe, he singled out the European Molecular Biology Laboratory
(EMBL) as a top institution.
He said that each top country has its own strength and that, for the United States, it is
its infrastructure and its ability to attract high-quality young scientists from across the world.
Nevertheless, he said, researchers outside the United States have superior quantitative skills.
China was seen as rising in the next 20 years. He said that methods by which China is
developing its research capability include training people in the United States and successfully
recruiting them back to China by giving them more money than U.S. institutions can afford.
Also, he said, labor costs are cheaper in China, so research money goes further there. In interactions
with young Chinese scientists, he sensed, they have a greater irreverence to authority
than their Japanese peers. He hypothesized that China’s one-child policy produces the same
kind of “spoiled child” that American wealth does. These individuals, in his view, might be
driven to succeed to gain the attention of their mentors or to prove their own ideas correct.
He also saw Singapore as an emerging research power, especially relative to its small size.
Singapore, he said, is finding success by “throwing a large amount of resources at the problem,”
importing the best scientists by providing them with tremendous amounts of funding along
with good infrastructure.
He said that he would consider spending a sabbatical year in Japan but that such a decision
would be driven more by his interest in Japan and its culture than the appeal of doing
science in Japan.
What do you think are the weaknesses or hindrances to greater excellence for Japan?
The respondent said that he believes that Japan’s research program is at a decision point at
which quality could either improve or get stuck at its current level. He said that there are two
large problems that Japan must overcome.
The first major problem is the old-fashioned European system that Japan adopted. In this
system, he said junior people are “subjugated” to senior researchers. When junior scientists are
not fully independent, they are unlikely to be as creative as they could be. In Japan, he said,
junior researchers are never fully rewarded for their creativity, because senior researchers always
take some of the credit. In addition, there is a disincentive to take risks—or for the senior
researcher to allow it—because, if the experiment does not succeed, the senior researcher’s
reputation suffers as well.
The second major problem, in his view, is Japan’s failure to treat female scientists as
equals. He said that, when he visited Japan, several female scientists told him about their poor
treatment. In his opinion, how females are treated in Japan would be considered sexual harassment
by American standards. This discrimination of women, in his view, diminishes Japan’s
talent pool by half.
Other than these two problems, he said, the traditional Japanese social structure restricts
maximum creativity from its graduate students. The system, in his view, promotes higher levels
of respect for the professors than they deserve. He said that he encourages his own graduate
students to “seek out opportunities to prove” him wrong. This openness to challenges and new
ideas, he said, is a strength of American laboratories. He added that such openness is essential
to good research because progress results from researchers who dare to “push on ideas
to see if they will stand up to additional testing” and to synthesize components into morecomprehensive
ideas and better explanations. “A good scientist is a skeptic,” he said.
What are your recommendations for Japan?
He underscored that high-quality research programs must have a peer-reviewed grant process
in which funding is controlled by scientists and determined by scientific merit rather than a
government mandate to do certain types of work. When government mandates research agendas,
there is a great deal of waste when researchers sacrifice their research focus in the pursuit
of funding. Europe, he said, does well in its grant process, citing that European funding agencies
do not generally place onerous emphasis on preliminary data, something required by many
U.S. grant programs.
Collaboration, he said, is important both with internal and external partners. He said
that he chose to work at his current institution because of its highly collaborative and collegial
environment, in which people like each other and learn from each other. (He said that
he was also offered start-up funds for his research and that he has good access to equipment.)
He added that there are many opportunities for collaborations, to the extent that he rarely
collaborates outside of the institution. He said that having collaborators located nearby has
contributed to successful projects. He said that his institution also allows researchers complete
academic freedom. Further, like most other research programs in the United States, people are
hired because they are bright and are good scientists, not because they fill a preordained niche.
This, in his opinion, allows creative exploration and the ability to change fields, as he did.
He said that structured grants should be created to foster international collaborations.
The respondent suggested that money should be made available to all parties, contingent on an
international collaboration. Travel funds should also be included. A good model, in his view,
is the Keck Futures Initiative of the National Academies in the United States, in which funds
are available to both collaborators as long as they are from different disciplines.
There should also be a willingness to invest in long-term projects. The respondent said
that Japan should further invest in infrastructure. For example, the University of Tokyo has
the right equipment but is visibly underfunded for general maintenance, which he summarized
thusly: “The labs were nice but the hallways were not.” In the United States, he said, the best
institutions know that good aesthetics can be a powerful recruiting tool.
Academic positions should be dictated by scientific merit. Japan should, he said, make
assistant professors independent in the U.S. style, giving young faculty their own laboratories
and research funding and thus having them take their own risks and rewards. This setup of
the U.S. system, in his view, is a major contributor to the success of the U.S. research program.
Independent research opportunities, he added, are also important as part of undergraduate
education to give students a sense of what science looks like, especially with respect to the
social environment of research and what research demands in terms of lifestyle compromises.
These experiences allow undergraduates to get used to being with people who are intense and discussing science all the time. Students, he said, would also begin to feel like they are members
of the scientific community, which can motivate them to work hard to produce good research.
Teaching could also be improved by emphasizing history in addition to quantitative skills.
Scientists, in his view, should learn more about the historic work in their discipline. Knowing
about the hard work and success of others can provide the courage to perform long, difficult
experiments. Students need to recognize and be able to deal with the fact that most experiments
fail. This kind of education, he said, can “create a scientist by teaching them not to give
up, and then give them skills to make the odds of success a little better.” As for quantitative
skills, he remarked that even observational science is quantitative, so knowledge of statistics is
crucial.
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Summary 12
Summary 12
Field and Subfield(s): Life sciences; Neuroscience and behavior (1)
Location: EU
Status: Established
Gender: Female
Nationality: Non-Japanese
Professional experience in or with Japan: Moderate
What is the overall competitiveness of Japan in your area(s) of research, in general, and
what are Japan’s strengths in research?
According to the respondent, Japan is “a serious player” and “really brilliant” in neuroscience.
In her view, Japan recognizes the field’s importance and funds it well. Japan, she said, is likely
to remain at the forefront of the field. She said that the top people in Japan include Msaso Ito,
Tetsuro Matsuzawa, and Susumu Tonegawa—the latter she described as “very imaginative.”
She said that she knows of many Japanese neuroscientists, whom she met in the United States,
at RIKEN, or at neuroscience conferences. She noted a recent experience at a conference in
which a University of Tokyo researcher approached her and asked a “brilliant” question. She
said that she was impressed by his forthrightness and appreciated his lack of reserve and that
this inspired her to explore the possibility of collaborating on a shared interest.
She said that she has seen Japan reaching out to bring in researchers from other countries
in the past five to ten years, rather than hiring only Japanese nationals for scientific and
academic positions. This mix of international people, in her opinion, is absolutely important
because people teach one another things and learn by “having tea, rubbing [elbows], sharing
offices, [all of which] is tremendously broadening.”
Discussing the field’s innovation in general, she said, she has seen “progress around the
fringes” but no answers on central issues, such as central nervous system organization. Further,
research is generally funded for minutiae but not the big questions, which, she said, is a problem
for an emerging science like neuroscience. For instance, she said, the big questions cannot
be answered without studying monkey physiology, which people have done since the 1950s,
although techniques are constantly improving.
Canada, in her view, is “doing pretty well, smart enough not to go to war so they have
more money to put into science.” Italian researchers have also shown signs of improvement. In
these cases, researchers are not under as much pressure as they are elsewhere to write grants and
publish, so they have time to think, converse, and “chew on ideas with you.” As for the UK, she
said, the country has “put in a huge effort” in improving its infrastructure.
As for the United States, she said, the NIH has become sensitive to the need to do more
for young scientists. She said she could see senior scientists in the United States undermining
the entire system if things did not change. She described the NIH granting system as notoriously
conservative and unwilling to fund innovative projects. She said that she does not know
whether the situation is similar in Japan but said that she would be “surprised if Japan doesn’t
fall victim to similar habits.”
What do you think are the weaknesses or hindrances to greater excellence for Japan?
When the respondent visited institutions in Japan to give talks and attend summer events, she
said, she found it “always very difficult to interact in such a short time.” She surmised, “[T]his
may have been misperception on my part.” At her own institution, she said, people “wander in
to tea and have interesting discussions—things are a hive of activity even at 10 p.m.,” whereas
she did not have that feeling in Japan, where people are very proper and reserved.
She said that some of these difficulties may be cultural (e.g., professors hold chairs for life
so that younger professors do not have much chance for promotion until the old professors die).
As result, she said, young professors “kowtow to the [old] professor and follow in his footsteps,
read what he writes, do what he does.” Such, she said, is the situation in Germany; as a result,
little good work is done in Germany. She said that this very rigid hierarchical structure needs
to change and that one option may be to identify people who can bridge areas of research and
have a vision of what the big questions are. She said that she is not aware “if anyone in Japan
fills that role” at present.
What are your recommendations for Japan?
The respondent said the most productive research environment is one that is “open, where you
can talk to anybody and there is no sense that one is famous or just a graduate student.” In her
view, this type of environment stimulates productivity and provides innovation, and partnerships
form when people realize they have similar ideas and can do new and interesting things
together.
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Summary 13
Summary 13
Field and Subfield(s): Life sciences; Neuroscience and behavior (2)
Location: U.S.
Status: Rising star
Gender: Female
Nationality: Non-Japanese
Professional experience in or with Japan: High
What is the overall competitiveness of Japan in your area(s) of research, in general, and
what are Japan’s strengths in research?
The respondent did not think that Japan was doing well in psychology research and said that
no Japanese institution stands out. She said that she thinks that Japan is more innovative in
such areas as physics, math, and engineering.
She said that all the notable Japanese researchers in psychology of whom she knows have
left Japan, mostly moving to the United States for higher pay, for better research opportunities,
and to escape the hierarchical system in Japan. She cited the example of a U.S.-trained Japanese
scientist who pioneered the subarea of cultural psychology in Japan. Yet, today, she said, most
work in this area occurs at the University of Hong Kong, the Hong Kong University of Science
and Technology, and Peking University.
She ranked the United States as the leader in psychology research. The top research institutions
include Harvard University; Columbia University; New York University; Cornell University;
Stanford University; Yale University; the University of California, Los Angeles; the
University of Illinois; and the University of California, Berkeley. After the United States, the
other leaders are Hong Kong, China, and India. In these parts of Asia, she said, work at the
Chinese University of Hong Kong stands out. She added that the UK, Poland, and France
also produce high-quality work. She said that she expects European countries—France in
particular—to improve greatly. One reason for her thinking is the expanded research and
exchange relations these countries have with the United States. As a caveat, she noted that
research at the top institutions is constantly improving, so she could not comment on which is
improving the most. As for education in the field of psychology, she said that the Max Planck
Institute in Germany has made the greatest improvement in the past five years.
She said that she does not expect Japan to reach the forefront of the field in the next five
years because, in her view, Japan does not value psychology or the social sciences in general.
She cited as evidence that the best research is published in U.S. journals, which require proficiency
in English to write papers for submission—a weakness among Japanese researchers.
What do you think are the weaknesses or hindrances to greater excellence for Japan?
She said that, when university admission rather than performance in a university program
is the key determinant for graduation, the system will not produce high-quality students or
researchers.
What are your recommendations for Japan?
Near-term priorities, in her view, should be faculty exchange programs between U.S. and Japanese
academic faculty. Alternatively, institutions in Japan could try to attract foreign researchers
to come to Japan, but, she said, this may be more costly. Also, she commented that most
foreigners are “taken aback by Japanese culture.” Therefore, in her view, Japan needs to identify
those who will take time to understand the Japanese way and not try to impose their way on
the Japanese system. Building strong working relationships, she said, takes time and having
open-minded people on both sides willing to learn cultural differences.
Education is also important, and academic faculty must be well trained. Japan, she said,
could send students abroad and recruit them back to teach. In her view, Singapore, for example,
does a good job in sponsoring its citizens to go abroad in exchange for agreeing to teach
in Singapore. Also, university students should not just be taught to perform rote memorization.
With the proper training, faculty can teach students in more-creative ways. For example, allowing students more “structured freedom” and giving them permission to be creative will
ease their fears of negative repercussions from trying out new ideas.
The respondent also urged for changes to Japan’s research funding mechanisms. From
what she saw in the 1990s, she said, the mindset could be summed up as “give it to your buddies
and people who are old.” She emphasized that Japan needs to reward young researchers, as
is done in United States, India, and the EU.
Finally, in terms of producing groundbreaking research, in her view, the Japanese are
more inclined to think more about improving things, like making them more efficient and
cheaper, than about coming up with brand-new ideas. Such a mindset, she said, is not conducive
to doing innovative research.
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Summary 14
Summary 14
Field and Subfield(s): Life sciences; Neuroscience and behavior (3)
Location: U.S.
Status: Established
Gender: Male
Nationality: Japanese
Professional experience in or with Japan: Moderate
What is the overall competitiveness of Japan in your area(s) of research and, in general,
what are Japan’s strengths in research?
The respondent rated Japan as not highly competitive in his field. He said that, on average,
Japanese university departments in his field are low in quality but that there are a few good
researchers in Japan.
He said that training in the hard sciences is one of Japan’s strengths. Japanese universities
are very selective, and the sense of discipline that permeates among students in Japan prepares
them for training to do sophisticated work in science.
The respondent named RIKEN as the “only attractive place” in Japan for research in his
field and where he would consider working, because it is well funded by the Japanese government
and supports research in a broad range of areas. This, in his view, allows researchers more
freedom to pursue their research interests. He added that senior researchers who desire prestige
as a “professor” may not choose to work at RIKEN because this title is not given (nor is it at
Max Planck Institute in Germany).
What do you think are the weaknesses or hindrances to greater excellence for Japan?
Lack of proficiency in English, in his view, is the biggest barrier, and cultural barriers also
hinder international collaborations. Japan, he speculated, seems to have a weakness for foreigners
and a cultural desire to maintain peaceful personal relationships (ninjo, in Japanese). For
example, in his opinion, foreign researchers are almost always treated as guests and are never
integrated. He said that this mentality and a refusal to integrate non-Japanese discourage foreign
researchers from seeking careers in Japan.
Also, he said, he found that foreign researchers who are mediocre performers are allowed
to stay on their jobs in Japan because Japan does not want to discourage them from coming to
Japan. Japanese researchers who are mediocre performers, too, are rarely dismissed.
At an institutional level, the respondent said, there is a lack of support for young researchers.
This undermines their independence to pursue research that interests them. A hierarchical
social structure in scientific research, in his view, does not allow Japan to fully benefit from the
quality of science education training in the country.
Finally, regarding training, the respondent said, graduate studies in Japanese universities
are not as well organized as in U.S. universities, with their requirements of qualifying exams,
required courses, and the like. (Ph.D. students in the United States typically must take these
exams to demonstrate mastery of a subfield or subject before they are allowed to enter the dissertation
stage of a Ph.D. program.)
What are your recommendations for Japan?
The single most important thing, he said, is to improve proficiency in English among Japanese
researchers. Having more native English speakers teaching in Japan, mostly at the highschool
and college levels, is helpful. Another recommendation is that Japan must integrate
non-Japanese researchers into the Japanese system. Non-Japanese researchers, he said, cannot
be seen only as short-term fellows or visitors. Also, longer-term exchanges between researchers
and institutions might help to lessen cultural barriers to foreign collaboration. Finally, he
underscored that funding, promotion, and tenure decisions should be based on merit rather
than relying on personal relationships. In his view, the Japanese bureaucracy currently has too
much power in determining the distribution of research funds, and the personal relationship
carries too much weight (e.g., professors can personally negotiate for research money with
government officials). Using merit as the central criterion for funding decisions would force
mediocre researchers to move aside and allow good young researchers to move up. In this connection,
fair and high standards for tenure appointments, which, he emphasized, are currently
“not rational,” should be implemented.
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Summary 15
Summary 15
Field and Subfield(s): Life sciences; Pharmacology and toxicology (1)
Location: U.S.
Status: Established
Gender: Male
Nationality: Non-Japanese
Professional experience in or with Japan: High
What is the overall competitiveness of Japan in your area(s) of research, in general, and
what are Japan’s strengths in research?
The respondent placed Japan among the top five in research in pharmacology, describing its
research as “very good.” He ranked the United States, the UK, China, Japan, and Singapore
at the top, with China, India, and Thailand on the rise. Political decisions to invest heavily in pharmacology and related areas, he said, are rapidly developing research programs in these
countries. He added that China is starting to achieve higher quality by emphasizing meritbased
performance, professional mobility, and reward for achievements and that India, using a
similar approach, is also producing good results.
The competitiveness of Japan’s research program, in his view, has remained fairly constant.
He said that Japan has produced outstanding accomplishments in molecular cloning,
transgenics, and drug development. In general, he said, Japanese advances tend to be technical
in nature and not particularly innovative. Also, infrastructure in Japan is quite good overall,
but the quality of its human capital is more variable. The top institutions in Japan he named
include the University of Tokyo, Kyoto University, and Fukuoka University, and a notable
high-achieving scientist is Gozoh Tsujimoto of Kyoto University.
The respondent said that he has a few long-term collaborators in Japan and consulted
for a Japanese company, which has allowed him to travel extensively in Japan. He said that he
collaborates with his Japanese peers because of the quality of their work and that their work
complements his own.
What do you think are the weaknesses or hindrances to greater excellence for Japan?
Research management, in his view, is a major problem for Japan. Like the rest of its society,
Japan’s research structure is very rigid. Although he believes that it is improving, he says that
Japan needs more flexibility in its research structure. Currently, those in high positions cannot
be removed, and everyone below these individuals is subordinate to them. He said that the
U.S. approach is better for research development and noted that Europe has some problems
similar to those in Japan.
Similarly, he said, the highly homogeneous and hierarchical nature of the Japan’s educational
system makes it difficult for students to think outside the box.
Finally, he said, there are cultural barriers for foreigners interested in working in Japan.
He said that he would not consider a long-term stay in Japan because of cultural differences.
He explained that he does not feel comfortable in Japan partially because he finds Japanese
body language difficult to read and because Japanese people are so polite that it is difficult to
know what they are honestly thinking.
What are your recommendations for Japan?
Good science needs competition, he said, and he added that “you want the best people to go up
and others to go down.” He said that it might help to limit tenure for senior positions and make
merit the central criterion. Less productive researchers can then make way for more-productive
younger people. In his view, Japan needs to “rebalance” with “people who are currently productive
over people who used to be.”
Japan could also foster more creativity by encouraging more individual interactions with
outside cultures. He picked the United States as a successful model of education, one that gives
students more independence, supporting their “crazy ideas” and letting them fail as a part of
the learning experience. In Japan, he said, students are considered successful if they do what
they are told, but “this does not make good scientists.”
He said that the rigidity of Japan’s education system might also be reduced by having
non-Japanese enter the education system. The infusion of outside attitudes might help to break
down existing norms in Japanese culture and society. To do this, he said, Japan would need to
hire more foreigners and participate in more exchange programs, and he added that exchange programs in which Japanese students work abroad and foreigners come to work in Japan might
also be a useful approach to developing research programs.
Foreign collaboration and exchanges would benefit Japanese research, too. Science, he
emphasized, is best done collaboratively. Since Japan is a small country, opportunities for
domestic collaboration are limited. Japanese institutions should therefore “strengthen their
outward ties.” In expanding recruiting for non-Japanese researchers and faculty, he said, their
lengths of stay in Japan should be extended. In his view, for researchers to do any significant
work, their lengths of stay should preferably be at least one to two years.
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Summary 16
Summary 16
Field and Subfield(s): Life sciences; Plant and animal science (1)
Location: EU
Status: Established
Gender: Male
Nationality: Non-Japanese
Professional experience in or with Japan: High
What is the overall competitiveness of Japan in your area(s) of research, in general, and
what are Japan’s strengths in research?
The respondent ranked Japan as among the top five countries in the world in his subfield, with
the other leading countries being the United States, the UK, Germany, and Sweden or France.
He said that he has worked at RIKEN and at other Japanese institutions. These collaborations,
he explained, were motivated partly by his interest in the work of some Japanese researchers
whom he regards to be very competitive on a global scale. At these institutes, he said, he found
the facilities and the levels of funding to be good. He described the researchers as very well prepared
and said that they publish regularly in the field’s top journal. The top Japanese institutions
also have high-quality graduate programs, where classes are taught in English and highquality
students go to foreign institutions for training and experience. His own university, he
said, is in the process of hiring five or six Japanese Ph.D.’s in his department, all of whom are
very well trained and knowledgeable.
He said that he does not see any compelling improvements in other countries in the past
five to ten years that deserve to be mentioned and said that he expects Japan to stay at the forefront
of the field in the coming decades.
What do you think are the weaknesses or hindrances to greater excellence for Japan?
The respondent highlighted several points.
First, he said, international collaborations have been a consistent weakness of Japan in
recent decades. Despite advances in communications and the Internet, collaboration between
Japan and the rest of the world has not dramatically grown, as he would have expected. Part
of the problem, in his view, lies in the absence of specific policies at the national or institutional
level to foster collaboration. International collaboration endeavors are instead driven by personal initiative—that is, by researchers who are interested working with specific Japanese
institutions or researchers. Of course, funding is needed, and it has been consistently scarce.
Second, language is another problem hindering international collaborations. The experience
of other non-Japanese researchers informed him that one needs to speak Japanese to have
in-depth interaction, and, in his view, Japanese is a very difficult language to learn. Most students
in Japanese institutions are Japanese, and non-Japanese students are rare.
Third, Japan is not doing well in commercializing research results. Commercialization
of research results in his area (e.g., selling patents) could be a good source of revenue to fund
research.
What are your recommendations for Japan?
He said that Sweden does a good job in commercialization and might be a model worth examining.
Researchers own the intellectual property rights for their work—not the university or
Sweden. This kind of arrangement incentivizes researchers to pursue research, and it has helped
Sweden to become competitive in the field. In Sweden, private or enterprise funding can also
be important to support research. He was not clear whether Japan had something similar in
place. Finally, he said, Japan needs to invest in developing its researchers.
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Summary 17
Summary 17
Field and Subfield(s): Life sciences; Plant and animal science (2)
Location: EU
Status: Established
Gender: Male
Nationality: Non-Japanese
Professional experience in or with Japan: Moderate
What is the overall competitiveness of Japan in your area(s) of research, in general, and
what are Japan’s strengths in research?
Japan was said to be in a very good position at the international level since the 1970s. The quality
of Japanese research was described as comparable to that in the United States and Europe.
The respondent said that Kyoto University and the Tokyo Institute of Technology are among
the top institutions in Japan. Japanese researchers were described as outstanding, original, and
grounded and as enjoying a high level of administrative and technological support. He credited
much of Japan’s improvements to improved teaching at the graduate level in Japan.
More Japanese, we were told, are being sent overseas for training and to attend conferences
and seminars. Overall, the respondent said, he is seeing more students from Asia coming
to Europe.
He ranked the United States as the world leader in his field and said that Germany,
Sweden, and, lately, Spain are doing a very good job. Russia, in particular, was identified as a
leader in forest ecology. He said he has seen Spain improve greatly in the past five to ten years,
especially in ecophysiology. Other countries improving at a faster rate than the rest are China and Brazil. China, he said, sends a lot of students to the United States, while Brazil puts large
investments in science.
He said that the United States has the ideal system for S&T research. He stressed that
the presence of enormous financial resources, strong competition between institutions and
researchers, openness in the system, and a free flow of ideas all help to foster creativity.
What do you think are the weaknesses or hindrances to greater excellence for Japan?
Despite improvements, graduate education was described as weak in Japan (and Italy), and the
respondent put the blame on cultural issues (e.g., a society that is less open to non-Japanese).
What are your recommendations for Japan?
The first thing Japan should do, he said, is to open up as much as possible by sending students
abroad and by bringing in non-Japanese graduate students and researchers. The government
should also promote cooperation with researchers or institution outside of Japan. In today’s
research environment, it is “very difficult to stay at the forefront in isolation.” As globalization
increases in research, students and researchers need to increase their exposure to others’
ideas and learn how the way they express their ideas. The EU experience should be studied and
adapted to Japan’s needs. The EU, for instance, offers experience and has learned its lessons on
what to do and what not to do to foster collaboration.
In this connection, he said, collaboration should involve researchers in the United States
and Europe. Japan, he explained, tends to look more to the United States and less to Europe.
Finally, collaborations need to be more systematic and should involve graduate students.
He cited the Erasmus/Socrates programs in the EU, as well as the European Science Foundation
and the European Research Council (ERC) as providing good examples for funding collaborative
research.
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Summary 18
Summary 18
Field and Subfield(s): Life sciences; Plant and animal science (3)
Location: U.S.
Status: Established
Gender: Male
Nationality: Non-Japanese
Professional experience in or with Japan: High
What is the overall competitiveness of Japan in your area(s) of research, in general, and
what are Japan’s strengths in research?
The respondent said that Japan is not very strong in animal science but still placed Japan
among the top ten countries worldwide. Some laboratories, he said, hold potential to do better
because they produce some good research. Then, in a few areas, such as cloning, Japan has
done very well. In molecular biology and developmental biology, he ranked Japan among the
top five countries in the world. In developmental biology, he placed the United States at the top
position, followed by the UK, Switzerland, Germany, France, Japan, and China.
Overall, he said, the quality of research in Japan in his field can vary considerably, and
Japan does not appear to be improving. Weaker laboratories, in his experience, suffer from a
lack of rigor and enthusiasm among their workers. Also, some laboratories have high-quality
equipment, but access seems to be a problem, and some researchers are hindered by insufficient
resources.
Recently, he said he has seen more high-quality scientists appointed to important positions.
Also, he added that many of these talented researchers are more outward-looking and are
more inclined to interact with the international scientific community. If promotions continue
to evolve in this direction, he said, Japan’s S&T should improve.
He singled out China as having made substantial improvement in its research program
recently. The Chinese government, in his view, appears determined to improve the quality of
science and is investing heavily in science. He reported that more Chinese educated overseas
are also returning to China to help build the research program. This contrasts sharply with a
Japanese postdoctoral researcher he has working with him who is not enthusiastic about going
back to Japan. The main reason given was that returnees can face many difficulties accessing
opportunities when they lack the connections that may be necessary in the more hierarchical
Japanese research structure. In his experience, he said, researchers in China have consistently
better access to resources than in Japan. Finally, he said, China’s success is also due to its careful
selection of areas to focus its resources and talent.
The respondent said that he would not consider spending prolonged periods working in
Japan—even on the scale of a short sabbatical—primarily because of cultural and language
difficulties. He said that his wife would not accompany him because of the “foreignness of
Japan” and it would be difficult for her to find something meaningful to do. Further, he said,
there does not appear to be many funding opportunities for prolonged visits to Japan. He said
the lack of financial support—or awareness of them—may obstruct Japanese efforts to recruit
visiting researchers.
What do you think are the weaknesses or hindrances to greater excellence for Japan?
He emphasized that the social network’s importance to success in Japan may hinder Japanese
living overseas from returning to Japan.
Also, the hierarchical structure in Japan gives individuals at the top of the research structures
enormous power, even if they are not particularly good scientists. Inside research laboratories,
he said, such hierarchical structures may diminish the productivity of individual workers,
especially in the weaker research groups. In his limited experience, he reported seeing
low-level researchers working long hours without a focus on getting things done. He said this
“lack of a sense of action” could be remedied by bringing in enthusiastic individuals.
What are your recommendations for Japan?
The respondent said that recruiting based on more impartial measures of ability would help to
attract more people, including Japanese overseas, to work in Japan.
He said that he believes that political leaders in Japan know that the rigid scientific structure
is a problem and that they are trying to improve it. He said that whether a new culture of
science will emerge and take hold in Japan depends on the flexibility the head of a unit has to
allocate resources even if it would upset the hierarchy. Also, research programs are most effective
when there is less control from the top. In the United States, he explained, there is a long
tradition of giving people freedom, and the UK has been evolving in this direction.
It is important to choose the right areas to fund for long-term success, including commercialization.
He said that developing countries often want to fund research that is related to
commercial ends but that this may not necessarily produce the best research in the long term.
A rigorous university education is important to develop researchers. He underscored that
it must be intellectually demanding and allow people to develop their own ideas. In his view,
Japan places tremendous pressure on students through the high-school level, but, once they
are admitted into college, this pressure is excessively relaxed. He continued that the result is
an educational experience that is insufficiently rigorous. In the United States, he said, universities
make up for inadequacy and inconsistency in high-school education. The U.S. system, he
added, is more flexible and allows people to play catch-up if they are willing to put in the effort
but penalizes them if they do not meet certain standards. Further, students in U.S. schools who
take initiative have access to a wide variety of opportunities to develop their skills (e.g., working
in laboratories or via internships).
To encourage foreign collaborations, he said, Japan’s researchers need better speaking
skills in English. In his experience, he found Japanese scientists to be very self-conscious about
speaking, so they do not practice enough. Even those who had received a good part of their
education in English would benefit from more emphasis on speaking practice. He said that
it might also be useful for Japanese hosts to be more sensitive to the specific cultural ways or
needs of their international visitors (e.g., allowing foreign visitors more time to themselves).
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Summary 19
Summary 19
Field and Subfield(s): Environmental science; Environment/ecology (1)
Location: EU
Status: Established
Gender: Male
Nationality: Non-Japanese
Professional experience in or with Japan: Low
What is the overall competitiveness of Japan in your area(s) of research, in general, and
what are Japan’s strengths in research?
Europe, the respondent said, leads the world in his area of earth science research, and Japan
and the United States may be characterized as competitive vis-a-vis individual European countries.
He credited collaboration between European countries for making Europe the leader as
a whole and said that the strongest institutions in his area of research include the British Antarctic
Survey, the University of Bergen, the University of Bern, and Grenoble University. As for
Japan, he said, the National Institute of Polar Research seems well organized and very efficient.
Although there has not been much change in the field in the past five years, he said,
Europe is leading because the EU funding motivates collaborations between member-state
institutions.
In his field, the respondent said, innovations are driven by stepwise improvements in
technology, analysis of ice cores, and the like. Success in reaching the bedrock, for instance,
has been driven by technologies that allow faster drilling. The first advancements occurred in Denmark, then Germany, Italy, France, Japan, and others followed. In short, technologies are
shared among researchers across national borders, and accomplishments in the field are built
on sustained joint research and networks created by collaboration. Thus, in his view, any single
country—whether it is the United States or Japan—cannot compete with the collaborative
efforts of ten or more countries as in Europe.
He said that half of all research funds in Europe are coming from the EU and require
joint work from institutions across EU member states. This, in his opinion, has strongly motivated
collaboration on all levels, from sharing infrastructure to exchanging personnel.
As for the education system, he said, British and French institutions provide the best education
in his field. While they have good funding, he attributed it more to their long history
of research in his field and having good strategies in picking research questions and pursuing
them.
What do you think are the weaknesses or hindrances to greater excellence for Japan?
He said that Japan has increased its openness over the past five years but that it is still far from
matching Europe in research collaboration.
What are your recommendations for Japan?
Japan, we were told, needs to become more open and collaborative. He said that the EU research
funding strategy to promote joint projects across Europe provides a model for consideration
because the initial funding incentive has generated strong and continuous collaboration. The
respondent added that Japan is perhaps less open because of its geography and culture.
He said that increasing the share of teaching by non-Japanese faculty might help to
improve the quality of Japanese education. He said that he thinks that the proportion of international
experts teaching at universities is far greater in the UK and France than in Japan.
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Summary 20
Summary 20
Field and Subfield(s): Environmental science; Environment/ecology (2)
Location: EU
Status: Rising star
Gender: Female
Nationality: Non-Japanese
Professional experience in or with Japan: Low
What is the overall competitiveness of Japan in your area(s) of research, in general, and
what are Japan’s strengths in research?
The respondent said that Japan is not leading in geochemicals, her area of research. She said
that no single country could be regarded as the leader in her area because it is a very broad one
and leaders are to be found at different institutions and countries across the world. In her opinion,
Yale University has a very good group, and so do the Laboratoire de Géophysique Interne
et Tectonophysique (LGIT) and Grenoble University in France. She stressed that, in her area of research, good facilities are critical (e.g., the synchrotron high-energy beam lines at Stanford
University and the University of California, Berkeley).
As for the marine sciences, she said, the research group under Hiroshi Kitazato of JAMSTEC
is a leading research group. She described this group as focusing on small organisms
living on the sea bottom and said that it has done well in visualizing biomineralization processes
in organisms. In her view, the main reason for this success is the very strong financial
and technical support the group receives. She also noted that a Japanese researcher with whom
she had worked has done groundbreaking work on iron sulfide.
What do you think are the weaknesses or hindrances to greater excellence for Japan?
She said that her perception is that Japan is doing well technically but that its scientific output
may not be visible enough in terms of publications and participation in conferences. Based on
her observation, she said, Japan is internationally underrepresented relative to the level of funding
available to Japanese researchers.
She said that another weakness might be the very bureaucratic environment in Japan,
based on what her colleague had told her about his experience working in Japan. This colleague
was very enthusiastic about the research opportunities in Japan but said that the environment
is highly bureaucratic.
What are your recommendations for Japan?
Visibility is very important in science, she said, and the United States is very visible. Consequently,
she suggested that more efforts should be put into motivating Japanese researchers
to actively participate more in international conferences and to publish more in international
journals.
For any institution that aims to achieve excellence, she said, there must be competitive
funding for individual researchers, excellent technical facilities, and well-trained staff. She
added that having a long history in a field might also help to attract young researchers but is
not an absolute requirement. More important, in her view, is to bring together young researchers,
match students with the appropriate professor to help them to learn and develop their
research, and provide adequate funding for their work.
She said that it is difficult to say what could make Japan more attractive to young non-
Japanese researchers because so much depends on what an individual is looking for. For her,
Japan feels too far away, so she said would never consider working in Japan. Further, for most
researchers at a postdoctoral level or higher, any location must also offer employment opportunities
for their spouses or partners.
As good practice, she stressed that funding for short-term collaboration as well as continued
collaboration is important; this should also include travel funds for researchers who
already have basic funding for their research. She suggested that incentives might also be structured
to motivate international collaboration (e.g., giving additional points to grant proposals
that involve international collaboration, as the Dutch grant system does).
Funding at the individual level, she said, is important to giving researchers the opportunity
to set up their own line of research. She noted that, in the Netherlands, postdoctoral fellows
can apply for competitive three-year postdoctoral research funding to pursue their own
research ideas, and high-risk research is permitted. Competitive funding involving larger grant
amounts also occurs at the professor level.
As for improving the educational system to produce research scientists, she said, students
should be educated in English and they should be familiar with reading scientific papers.
They should also learn how to present ideas, form their own opinions, and design research
and follow it through. Good language, presentation, and writing skills, she underscored, are
important to a successful career. In this regard, she said the undergraduate- and master-level
systems in the Netherlands work very well. Students in the Netherlands, she explained, are all
trained in basic science to give them a strong foundation before they are allowed to specialize.
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Summary 21
Summary 21
Field and Subfield(s): Environmental science; Environment/ecology (3)
Location: EU
Status: Rising star
Gender: Male
Nationality: Non-Japanese
Professional experience in or with Japan: High
What is the overall competitiveness of Japan in your area(s) of research, in general, and
what are Japan’s strengths in research?
The respondent rated Japan as doing “fairly well” in research on biodiversity and bio-ecology.
The top institution in Japan was said to be the Center for Ecological Research at Kyoto University.
The respondent said that the entire group is doing good work. Yet, he said, Japan is not
among the best in the world, even though the country has an enormous richness to be studied,
including natural areas, species, and ecological situations, good funding, and some good
people. The more advanced countries include Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, Germany, and
the United States. He said that he was somewhat reluctant to compare the United States with
the rest because the United States is so much bigger than the others.
Japan, in his view, seems to have adequate funding for research in his field. His impression
is that universities in Japan are well funded and that researchers can seek centralized
funding. In his experience, block grants at his university gave him the resources he needed for
his research. In other subfields within ecology, he said, additional funding or infrastructure
might be needed. He said that Japan is catching up in terms of infrastructure but still lags well
behind the advanced countries. Also, in his view, an extremely positive change was introduced
at the institutional level in 2004 when the legal status of Japanese universities changed from
being government entities to becoming independent entities. This change, he said, has allowed
them to independently raise funds in order to improve the physical infrastructure and create
new salary structures.
The respondent had worked a total of four years in Japan, first on a fellowship and later
as a professor. His said that his impression was that academic jobs in Japan are obtained by
personal recommendation, recalling his own hesitation to travel so far to Japan for an interview.
The Japanese professor who recommended him for the position informed him that there
would be no interview, that he was offered the position. He said that the salary offered was
good, considering that the cost of living is higher in Japan than in Europe. Although he was the only non-Japanese researcher in the university, he said, he did not feel it was a problem
except for some colleagues who seemed displeased that an “outsider” was hired. He said that,
had he stayed in Japan, he likely would have gained promotion. Being Japanese or not made no
difference because the career path is mostly defined by seniority. In other words, “unless you
do something obviously wrong, you will keep your job.”
He commented that there seem to be no female researchers and recalled having read that
the percentage of women in science is ridiculously low in Japan (around 2 percent). He said
that women are generally underrepresented in science (e.g., gender distribution in the sciences
at the graduate level is quite even in Europe and women, too, are in the minority at the Ph.D.
level and beyond).
The respondent added that he had also spent three months in China 12 years ago. That
experience, he said, was quite difficult compared with his experience in Japan. He said things
might have changed since that time, but he found China “uncongenial” and one of the “hardest
environments to work in.” He also described the Chinese people as closed off and as viewing
foreigners only as a source of money. For example, he said, he had to pay higher prices for
the same things because he is not Chinese.
On research management and human capital in Japan, the respondent did not comment
on the quantity and quality of Japanese researchers but said that cultural barriers might make
it easier to know older researchers than newer ones. On clerical staff, he found their numbers
excessive in Japan and commented that there is too much bureaucracy in governmentsponsored
research organizations. For example, he said, his current institute has 15 clerical staff
supporting 255 researchers, versus his university in Japan, which had 17 clerical staff supporting
50 researchers. Many procedures, in his view, were created simply to give the clerical staff
something to do, which, of course, results in additional time and effort to deal with all kinds of
requirements. For example, he had to ask permission to go on his first field trip, a requirement
that he had not encountered in any of other seven countries in which he had worked.
He noted that Japan’s research collaboration has improved in recent years but that, given
the amount of incentives available, it is difficult to gauge how this is affecting the quality of
Japanese research. Due to the prestige associated with bringing in international scientists and
that additional funding (or point value) is allocated to institutions that bring in international
faculty, he said, people might be invited to Japan with little attention to their quality or how
their visit supports institutional objectives. He said that he has seen such practices during his
time in Japan.
What do you think are the weaknesses or hindrances to greater excellence for Japan?
He said that international collaboration is very much needed in Japan but that centralized
management and language present challenges. Although Japan’s system has been decentralizing
since 2004, in his view, it is still too “top-headed,” and further decentralization is necessary.
Also, although language was not a barrier in his professional life, it was for him and his
family in their daily lives. For non-Japanese researchers in Japan, learning Japanese is essential,
and it could take several years to command some level of proficiency.
He said that, although many more Japanese researchers are publishing in both Englishand
Japanese-language journals, English might still be a problem for many others. He said that
the requirement that persons seeking entry into Ph.D. programs must possess a certain level
of proficiency in English (passing an English exam) is a good thing but cautioned that it can
be imposed blindly. In one instance, he said, his intervention made it possible for two highly motivated youths who had failed to pass the English language exam to gain admission to the
Ph.D. program at his university in Japan.
As for Japanese graduate students, he said, they are hardworking but are too attached to
techniques. In his view, they do not challenge ideas (e.g., repeatedly doing the same experiments
without critically questioning why they are doing the experiments or whether the experiments
are necessary). He cited one instance, in particular, when a Japanese researcher on insect development
repeated an experiment for thousands of times and his Japanese students, too, “did
things that needed to be done a hundred times [or] a thousand times.” Thus, such constraints
in the Japanese education system hinder the production of groundbreaking research in Japan.
Finally, he said, Japan has been involved in the field for only the past 150 years. A century
and a half, in his opinion, is a relatively short period in maturing basic research, which Europe
had conducted back in the 17th to 19th centuries and the United States worked on in the 19th
and 20th centuries. Also, Japan’s choice to move rapidly to the more glamorous side of the field
(e.g., in deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, analysis) rather than to build a critical mass of experts
on the basics reduces Japan’s visibility in the field. He said that, although compiling the distribution
of species is much less glamorous than DNA study, the latter produces work that is
more easily publishable and can increase a researcher’s visibility and reputation.
What are your recommendations for Japan?
He said that the best overall way to improve S&T research is to increase collaboration between
individual researchers or through bilateral agreements between institutions. In this connection,
Japan has to abandon its prejudice against people who have spent time overseas.
English language capabilities among Japanese researchers must also improve. One option,
he said, might be to create something similar to China’s “translation funds,” which he believes
are very good. In this program, he explained, researchers can write first in Chinese, and their
work is then turned into English by highly qualified translators.
He emphasized that changes to Japanese education are also needed and should begin at
the high-school level. At present, he explained, students who question their teachers or are critical
of their ideas get “crushed.” He said that Japan does well in repetitive tasks, as shown by
results for the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) of the Organisation for
Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) and the Third International Mathematics
and Science Study—Repeat (TIMSS-R), but lags behind the United States and Europe
in creativity and problem solving. He said that this high-school mindset of “unwillingness to
challenge ideas” persists at the undergraduate and graduate levels in a culture that does not
criticize seniors or professors.
Further, students in Ph.D. programs, we were told, are treated more like adjuncts to
professors than like independent researchers. As the only non-Japanese member of the faculty
when he was employed at a Japanese university, he said, he would ask graduate students why
they were doing something, and their response was, “I don’t know. Professor X told me to do
so.”
On near-term priorities to improve Japan’s education, he said, one option would be to
recruit more non-Japanese faculty to work in Japan. Another that he favors is to have more
collaboration with institutions outside Japan to expose Japanese faculty to other teaching
methods. But when this problem is deeply rooted in the culture—and culture is difficult to
change—real change will take time, and this is why he counseled beginning at the secondary
education level to challenge current views and foster innovation.
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Summary 22
Summary 22
Field and Subfield(s): Environmental science; Environment/ecology (4)
Location: EU
Status: Established
Gender: Male
Nationality: Non-Japanese
Professional experience in or with Japan: Moderate
What is the overall competitiveness of Japan in your area(s) of research, in general, and
what are Japan’s strengths in research?
In the respondent’s field, there is “a large diversity in terms of quality of research” within Japan.
He cited Kyushu University as among the top institutions and said that it is very well known
and prestigious. For this reason, he expected Kyushu University to maintain its position. However,
he said that other Japanese institutions need to improve—e.g., Hiroshima University
and Tsukuba University, which he thought were better positioned six years ago. He said that,
although they are doing good work, improvements at these institutions have been slow. He said
that interesting work is being done by research groups in Canada, Germany, the Netherlands,
and the United States.
What do you think are the weaknesses or hindrances to greater excellence for Japan?
He said that language remains a barrier and that he has not seen adequate improvement in the
past six years. He thinks that JSPS is doing a good job in encouraging higher proficiency in
English but that teaching faculty in Japan generally have not progressed enough and graduate
students still struggle with English. The rote-learning approach to teaching English is, he
believed, a hindrance to greater improvement.
He said that there are also cultural barriers. Although he described his experiences in
Japan as “wonderful,” he did not believe that he would be able to find a position in Japan,
because he is not Japanese. He added that it was odd to find women absent in various social
contexts in Japan because Japanese cultural norms frown on their inclusion.
He considered the lack of statistical skills among biologists in Japan a significant weakness.
He said that Japanese universities do not teach statistics, believing that biologists do not
need to learn these methods. The respondent professed “teaching [colleagues] how to do basic
crosstabs and reading very simple tables.” This weakness, he said, affects not only the empirical