Japan
Although Japan has long been a hub of scientific innovation, the nation’s overall scientific output has been declining. The Nature Index is a database that records the number of research papers associated with a particular institution each year, calculating a weighted fractional count (WFC) that associates authors with specific studies. Although the University of Tokyo’s WFC from 2014 to 2015 increased by 6%, which is more than any other institution in Japan’s Nature Index top 10, overall, Japanese research papers in the field of natural science have been decreasing. According to Nagayasu Toyoda, president of Suzuka University of Medical Sciences, “The number of scientific articles in Japan normalized by population or GDP is less than half that of many OECD countries.” Mr. Toyoda attributes the low academic research output to annual federal budget cuts to national universities’ basic subsidies of approximately 1% or more during the last 10 years.
Source: Nature