Japan underperforms in scientific research: Study

A study from Thomson Reuters released today shows despite world-class universities, established government laboratories and several Nobel Prizes, Japan's performance in scientific research has remained mostly static.

The overall national trend points to a comparatively flat research output and declining share of the world's annual scientific literature.

The study, Global Research Report: Japan, found that the country's overall share of research production has slipped since 2000, from 9.45 percent to 6.75 percent in 2009. However, the nation is not alone in this trend among mature economies in the face of greater output and increasing international participation on the part of developing nations.

"Japan is an intriguing research policy conundrum, as it has been a leading contributor to the development of modern science in many fields over half a century," said Jonathan Adams, director, research evaluation at Thomson Reuters. "A contributing factor to Japan's underperformance could be the low rate of international collaboration. Research is driven by domestic activity instead of innovative opportunities with quickly developing neighbors."

Other key findings include: -- For the period 2005-2009, physics proved to be Japan's focus, with roughly 54,800 papers constituting just over 11 percent of the field. -- The average rate of citation to its research articles in the internationally influential journals tracked by Thomson Reuters is significantly below those of the other G7 nations. Japan scores 2 percentage points below the world average for the period 2005-2009. -- Regional collaboration with China and South Korea are likely to be of increasing significance as their domestic research bases grow -- another illustration of an emerging Asia/Pacific regional network.

The study is part of the Global Research Report series from Thomson Reuters that illustrates the changing landscape and dynamics of scientific research around the world. These studies draw on data found in Web of Science(SM), available on the Thomson Reuters Web of Knowledge(SM) platform -- the world's largest citation environment of the highest quality scholarly literature.

Source: THOMSON REUTERS