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Japan Science

Japan Tries To Revitalize Its Research (science.org) 29

Posted by msmash from the moving-forward dept.
Alarmed by the declining stature of its universities, Japan is planning to shower up to $2.3 billion a year on a handful of schools in hopes of boosting their prominence. From a report: The scheme was approved by the Japanese legislature on 18 May, although many details, including how to pick the favored universities, are still up in the air. But the move, under study for more than a year, has rekindled a debate among academics over how to reverse Japan's sinking research fortunes. Several previous schemes have yielded mixed results.

The new plan "aims to provide young promising scholars with the research environment that the world's top universities are supposed to offer, to dramatically enhance international collaborations, and to promote the brain circulation both domestically and internationally," says Takahiro Ueyama, a science policy specialist on the Council for Science, Technology and Innovation (CSTI), Japan's highest science advisory body, which was heavily involved in crafting the scheme. But Guojun Sheng, a Chinese developmental biologist at Kumamoto University in Japan, is skeptical. "I am not very optimistic that this [plan] will do much to curb the slide in the ranking of Japanese research activities or international competitiveness," he says. Sheng, who previously studied and worked in China, the United States, and the United Kingdom, says the new plan does not address fundamental problems at Japanese research institutes: too few women and foreign scientists, a fear of change, and lack of support for young scientists. To get better results, "Japan has to change its research culture," he says.
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Japan Tries To Revitalize Its Research More

Japan Tries To Revitalize Its Research

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  • Thank Japan for creating your computer (Score:4, Insightful)

    by shanen ( 462549 ) on Monday May 30, 2022 @03:58PM (#62578066) Homepage Journal

    [Anyone smell any brain farts? Me neither.]

    I wonder how many of the Slashdot crowd knows about Omron's deep involvement in the first PCs? Funny company, that. Marginal survivor with a consistent track record of developing interesting new technologies. Then going on to other things while late comers pick up all the the money.

    As regards the story, the Japanese government is the last candidate to fix the actual problems with doing innovative research in Japan. However, they really are responsible for the IP law problems that are doing most of the damage. That's a different joke. It's called the LDP for Liberal Democratic Party, but it's extremely conservative, not liberal, a hereditary oligarchy, with no regard for democratic principles, and a small and private club not to be confused with any sort of mass political party. I'm trying to think of a principle motivating the the LDP, but the only things I can come up with are "No" and "Hell no!"

    However, based on my long experience I think the biggest problem is actually the Japanese academic system, especially at the graduate school level. It's a feudal system with traces of meritocracy. Insofar as any significant research actually happens in Japan, I think it's entirely due to the perspiration aspect. Edison was right on that part of it and the Japanese are quite good at sustained effort.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      This reads like it was written by an AI.

    • The "system" used to work. Maybe the problem is the feudal educational system, where certain individuals act as gatekeepers, is an ill fit for times of faster change.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by shanen ( 462549 )

        If your "system" reference there is "Japanese education system" or "Japanese graduate school education system", then I think it's more of a personal loyalty problem, similar to the way feudal vassals swore allegiance to their lords. (Often called daimyo in the specific context of Japanese history.) Students join labs for advanced training, where each lab is the personal domain (almost a fiefdom) of a specific professor. Academics often remain in that same lab for the rest of their academic career, doing the

        • You phrased it better than I have. Still, I'm curious why that system worked in the past and kept Japan competitive with the US.

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by Anonymous Coward
            Most R&D in Japan that you can think of was done in large Japanese corporations like Sony and Toyota, or their suppliers. The Japanese educational system is not like the US. In Japan, college is basically a four-year break between the drudgery of high school (college admissions are extremely competitive and largely based on test scores) and the workplace (the battle for promotion is grueling because the Japanese economy is stagnant so the opportunities are few). The professors are plenty smart enough bu

          • You phrased it better than I have. Still, I'm curious why that system worked in the past and kept Japan competitive with the US.

            Well, it's not wildly different from the system in the US, UK and Europe. I don't know Japan or the Japanese academic system well, except via... mixed... reviews from returning postdocs. It sounds like a slightly more extreme version of what we have.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by shanen ( 462549 )

              I think that part of it is blurred by the extreme streaming. The objective of education in America used to be to educate ALL of the students as broadly as possible, but now the goal is to split the students into separate streams. The broad goal was to make better people by educating all the citizens, but now the goals are all basically defined in monetary terms. One money-driven goal is to find the brilliant students and route them into elite schools and then milk their ideas for profits as quickly as possi

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by shanen ( 462549 )

            I wasn't explicit enough about Edison's reference to 99% perspiration? The Japanese have several words for it, with "ganbatte" probably being the most frequently used. The sustained sweat rarely leads to major innovations, but it does work to solve many problems.

  • The US has stopped subsidizing public universities for the most part. Tuition that was once low enough, as recently as the early 1970s, to enable students to pay for most of their college by working at the minimum wage, has risen to exorbitant levels. Research grants and others from the government tend to involve favoring certain private universities. In Oregon, the state granted money to the extremely expensive "Oregon Graduate Center," a private institution while reducing funding to the state university

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by ghoul ( 157158 )
      More accurately US is stealing the future of the home countries the H1Bs come from. The home governments spend resources on educating the kids and when they are finally ready to contribute to society , US steals them away.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by djinn6 ( 1868030 )

        Being an H1B is like being a slave to the company that brought you over. If those countries cared, they can treat those people better.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by ghoul ( 157158 )
          There is a lot of rent seeking behaviors like not allowing the latest chips to be exported which prevent countries like India and China from having the same level of tech jobs so I undersand why the people move. But it is still a transfer of wealth from poorer countries to the US as US gets trained engineers without having to pay for the training. Which is why I am surprised Americans whine about H1Bs. Yes they are exploited and that exploitation keeps costs down for American consumers while keeping the eco

  • Nothing about the status quo is set in stone. Mess it up. Create the next revolution. The world anxiously awaits and will embrace it.

  • They're getting old demographically and severely restrict the kind of immigration that revitalizes other aging cultures. No amount of research grants can fundamentally address a culture "losing its mojo."
  • Yeah, those aren't their problems. Their problems are a rigid hierarchy and not teaching children to innovate, even to rebel. This leads to great engineers and poor scientists.

  • With no immigration, no natural resources, and a culture of isolationism, Japan has been in continuous decline for 30 years. Very soon, there will only be a few sterile old people, sitting around watching robots take care of the protein farms.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by cdmn1 ( 9615524 )
      They even took advantage of the COVID pandemic to revive their isolationism thing and prevent foreigners from entering the country (still in place ATM). Japan is living in the future as people say, but it's the 80's future.

  • That means it's dead?

  • Too few women? That's the dumbest thing I've read in ages. All the other factors get backed up with some actual evidence, that one however, does not. Protip: Women don't make everything automagically better. Cue the butthurt.

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