EL № FS 77 - 30569. №0421100025. ISSN 1994-0408
Japan appears to be suffering from brain drain
# 01, January 2010
Japan appears to be suffering from brain drain. Examples include chemist Osamu Shimomura and physicist Yoichiro Nambu, both of whom won Nobel Prizes in 2008 for research conducted in U.S. universities.Japan is not the ideal place to seek employment for some postdoctoral researchers. According to a study conducted by Masako Asano of Osaka Prefecture University, 41 percent of postdocs in particle physics leave Japan to get jobs because there aren't enough here to go around.
But Japan's public universities rate quite well internationally, according to the evaluation committee on national universities, part of the education ministry.
Six universities were ranked among the world's best by Quacquarelli Symonds Ltd. in 2009, including the University of Tokyo (22nd) and Kyoto University (25th).
"Japanese universities are greatly advanced, particularly in natural science research," said Motohisa Kaneko, an education professor at the University of Tokyo, otherwise known as Todai.
"For example, the number of papers (in the natural sciences) submitted for publication to academic journals is the second most after Harvard," he said, adding he thinks Todai got a lower ranking than it deserves.
According to Norimichi Kojima, an executive vice president at the University of Tokyo, scientific research there gets high marks overseas. Although its work in the humanities is also highly rated, Todai isn't as well-recognized in this field because some publications are issued only in Japanese.
"The University of Tokyo is one of the top research-oriented universities, and we educate what we call elites in the country," said Akihiko Tanaka, another executive vice president there. "Forty-four percent of the (current) DPJ Cabinet came from our university. Sometimes we're also criticized for this, but many of our graduates also work in the ministries and courthouses."
Despite the wide recognition, Todai is still struggling to bring in more undergraduate female and international students.
"Female students account for only 20 percent of the university," said Kojima. "More female students are entering the humanities, but not the physics or mathematics departments."
Among 2,550 foreign students, more than 2,000 are doing postgraduate work because some postgraduate studies are conducted in English.
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