Empirical study of the funding and performance of academic research activities in Japan

2002 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary

• Project/Area Number: 12800006
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Special Purposes
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Research Institution: University of TSUKUBA
• Principal Investigator: YAMAMOTO Shin'ichi University of TSUKUBA, Professor, 教育学系, 教授 (10220469)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): KOBAYASHI Shin'ichi University of TSUKUBA, Associate Professor, 社会工学系, 助教授 (90186742) ; ONO Hiroyuki Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, 工学部, 教授 (00176968) ; IWASAWA Yasuhiro University of TOKYO, Professor, 大学院・理学系研究科, 教授 (40018015) ; KATO Takeshi University of TSUKUBA, Assistant Professor, 社会工学系, 講師 (10233800) ; SUZUKI Hisatoshi University of TSUKUBA, Professor, 社会工学系, 教授 (10108219)
• Project Period (FY): 2000 – 2002
• Keywords: academic policy / Research enviroment / innovation system / multi-funding

Research Abstract

This study project first discuss structure and dynamics of academic research activity. Based on the discussion, we have focused on the structural major trends toward the borderless academic research activities to design questionnaire. These trends are featured by 1. globalisation of academic research activities, 2. devoured to national innovation system, 3. collaboration to multi-disciplinary approach. Another important point is the comparability on some basic statistics of Japanese academic research activity with our former research results carried out in 1998 to design questionnaire.
15518 samples of university professors and associate professors from University in Japan are chosen randomly and the questionnair package was sent. During the survey period of the march 2002, 2513 questionnairs were returned.
Main findings from the analysis of this data are as follows ;
1) Concentration of reserch funds ; About 60% of all research funds are distributed to only top 5% reserchers. On the othe r hand, the amount of research funds has increased about 30% in recent 3-years. The increasing trend is common to all deciles.
2) Public sector centered multi funding ; With the increae in the amount of research grant from private sector and with the foundation of many governmental programs supporting academic research activities in addition to KAKENHI (Grants-in-aid for scientific research), multi-funding system has fulfilled in the past decade in Japan. These research funds are often granted to the same laboratory at one time, and the public program plays a central role in these aposteriori joint funding.
3) Maintenance cost and lack of supporting staff ; In many cases, cost of maintenance of equipments essencial for research activities is not appropriate. Many professors are suffered from this situation and also from the lack of supporting staff.
4) Borderless academic research activities ; The members of a research group are extended over other affiliations, academic disciplines private sector and research activities have become global. The higher the academic activity level is, the more borderless one's research activity is.