The National Institute of Science and Technology Policy (NISTEP) of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology has conducted benchmarking (relative situation grasp) of Japanese universities compared to the United Kingdom and Germany from the analysis of papers targeting natural sciences. I have put together a report.
According to the report, the number of papers in Britain and Germany is similar to that in Japan, but when comparing the distribution of the number of papers in universities in the three countries, the number of papers in the top universities in Japan has more papers than in Britain and Germany. On the other hand, it was found that the number of papers in the top universities (3th to 10th) is smaller than that in both countries.Japan is composed of some universities with a large number of dissertations and a large number of universities with a small number of dissertations, and it is clear that the number of universities that follow the top ranks is thin compared to Britain and Germany.
Also, comparing the distribution of the number of papers by field, it is said that in Japan, the universities that appear at the top are fixed.In contrast to Japan, where the number of papers is concentrated in some universities, the top universities in the UK and Germany differed depending on the field.In particular, Germany was in an environment where the number of papers at each university was in competition and the ranking was liable to fluctuate, and the United Kingdom was located between Japan and Germany.
Furthermore, benchmarking of Japanese universities was carried out from multiple perspectives using three different field classifications (research portfolio 3 fields, 8 fields, 22 subject categories).As a result, it was found that the institutions conducting world-class research activities in Japan are not limited to national universities with a large number of papers, but also include many national, public and private universities with a large number of papers.Even if the number of papers in terms of global market share is small, there are many universities that are conducting research that attracts a lot of attention in specific fields. It can be said that this is an important point of view.
Finally, based on the suggestions clarified from this research, it is necessary to consider measures based on the characteristics of Japanese universities in order to improve Japan's research capabilities.
