Type: **NSF/Tokyo Report: Tara & Nara: Two Innovations in the
Organization of University Research in Japan **

Date: 3/10/98

Replaces: None

[The National Science Foundation\'s offices in Tokyo and in Paris
periodically report on developments abroad that are related to the
Foundation\'s mission. These documents present facts for the use of NSF
program managers and policy makers; they are not statements of NSF
policy.]{.underline}

[ \* \* \* \* \*]{.underline}

[The following report was prepared by ]{.underline}***[Dr. William A.
Blanpied]{.underline}***[, Senior International Analyst in the Division
of International Programs at the National Science Foundation.
]{.underline}***[Dr. Blanpied]{.underline}***[ visited Japan from
October 14 -- December 6, 1997 as a ]{.underline}**[Visiting Research
Fellow (short-term) under the sponsorship of the Japan Society for the
Promotion of Science (JSPS). ]{.underline}**[Professor Shinichi Yamamoto
of the University of Tsukuba, Japan served as host scientist for
]{.underline}***[Dr. Blanpied]{.underline}***[.]{.underline}**[
]{.underline}*[Dr. Blanpied]{.underline}***[ may be reached via email
at: ]{.underline}**[wblanpie@nsf.gov.]{.underline}**

# [TARA and Nara: Two Innovations in the Organization of University Research in Japan]{.underline}

Japan's Science and Technology Basic Plan, adopted by the Government of
Japan on July 2, 1996, comprises ambitious and far-reaching provisions
to streamline the country's research and development (R&D) system to
address the demands of the new century. The Basic Plan responds to the
Science and Technology Basic Law that was enacted by the Diet in
November 1995. One of its important goals is to integrate Japan's
somewhat marginalized academic research sector more closely into the
national research system.

Of course it is much too early to determine the extent to which this or
any of the Basic Plan's other objectives will be successfully
implemented. Well before the Basic Plan was adopted, however, several
imaginative projects in the organization of academic research and
advanced education in Japan were developed to address very similar
objectives. Examination of the current status of these initiatives could
provide clues to the ultimate effectiveness of the Basic Plan itself.
One such initiative is TARA (the Tsukuba Advanced Research Alliance), a
center created within an existing university that was itself created
less than 30 years ago. TARA styles itself as "an experimental
organization which is testing the new system for the promotion and
production of new technology". Another is Nara or, more properly, the
Nara Institute for Science and Technology, a new university created in
part with a view to determining whether it too might serve as a model to
be replicated elsewhere in the country.

**[TARA]{.underline}**[. ]{.underline}

**[Objectives.]{.underline}**[ The Tsukuba Advanced Research Alliance
(TARA) is the brainchild of Nobel Laureate Leo Esaki, who was elected
President of Tsukuba University in 1992. TARA was established on the
university campus in 1994 as a center to conduct research on problems of
potential interest to industry. Its stated objectives are:]{.underline}

*[1.]{.underline}[ ]{.underline}[to promote the most advanced
interdisciplinary scientific research;]{.underline}*

*[2.]{.underline}[ ]{.underline}[to originate basic research;
and]{.underline}*

*[3.]{.underline}[ ]{.underline}[to return university research results
to society in the form of new industry technologies.]{.underline}*

[The statement of objectives goes on to note that:]{.underline}

*[New technology develops from basic research. The research activity
residing in the university can stimulate and promote the necessary basic
research. For this new mission, the university must develop a new
research system. TARA is the experimental organization which is testing
the new system for the promotion and production of new
technology.]{.underline}*

**[Cooperation and Competition]{.underline}**[. Unlike most other
Japanese academic research centers TARA, as its name suggests,
emphasizes cooperative research -- or alliances - involving Tsukuba
university faculty and graduate students, faculty from other
universities, and researchers from the industrial and government
sectors. An in-house Liaison and Research Management unit actively
promotes such alliances, providing assistance to Tsukuba university
faculty (many of whom have little experience in making effective
industrial contacts) in locating suitable partners.]{.underline}

[The competitive atmosphere at TARA is unique in Japan. The institution
is organized around six broad research areas, or "aspects": three in the
biological and environmental sciences, two in materials science, and one
in information science. A professor from one of the university's science
faculties coordinates research within each aspect. These coordinators
hold seven-year joint appointments at TARA, renewable subject to the
results of performance evaluations. Projects within each of the seven
aspects are conducted by interdisciplinary, inter-institutional groups
led by other university faculty members whose projects are selected on
the basis of a competitive, peer reviewed process. Initial project
support is provided for three years, with the possibility of extension
for an additional four years, depending on the results of external
evaluation.]{.underline}

[In exchange for subjecting themselves to this unique discipline of
competition and external evaluation, successful group leaders, their
students, and their partners conduct research with state of the art
apparatus in two attractive new buildings -- one of them completed in
1995, the other due for completion this year. Perhaps they also gain
satisfaction from the knowledge that the TARA experiment could be in the
vanguard of Japanese research in the 21]{.underline}^[st]{.underline}^[
century. Yet there are serious questions that have yet to be addressed.
Although the TARA concept is intriguing, it is too early to judge its
effectiveness in providing a basis for new technologies. Evaluation of
the first set of projects, selected in 1996, will not be completed for
another year and, of course, commercial exploitation of potentially
useful research results will probably not occur for several years.
]{.underline}

**[TARA as a Pilot? ]{.underline}**[Even if ultimately judged effective,
it may be difficult to replicate the TARA concept elsewhere in Japan.
Tsukuba University itself, founded only in 1973, is a considerably more
flexible institution than most of the older, more prestigious national
universities such as Tokyo and Kyoto. Set in the heart of Tsukuba
Science City an hour north of Tokyo by bus, the university is in close
proximity to many high-technology companies which provide a ready source
of potential partners for TARA's research projects. The large number of
applied research institutes in Tsukuba, supported by the Ministry of
International Trade and Industry (MITI), provide another source of
talent. Few other universities have such ready access to the government
and industrial sectors. On the other hand, although Tsukuba is the most
prominent and well developed of Japan's science cities, several others
have been created during the past 10 to 20 yearsfor example, in the
Kansai region, which embraces the cities of Kyoto, Kobe and Osaka, and
around Fukuoka, the largest city on the southernmost island of Kyushu.
If, as President Esaki hopes, TARA succeeds in showing some promise in
meeting its objectives, perhaps universities in these and other parts of
the country might try to adapt the model to their own
circumstances.]{.underline}

**[Nara.]{.underline}**[ ]{.underline}

**[The Advanced Study Concept]{.underline}**[. The Nara Institute for
Science and Technology (NAIST), established in 1991, is one of two
national universities in Japan devoted exclusively to research and
graduate education. The other is the Japan Advanced Institute of Science
and Technology (JAIST), located in Tatsunokuchi in Ishikawa Prefecture,
which was created in 1990. A third advanced study institute located near
Yokahama and devoted to the social sciences is due to admit its first
students during the fall of 1998.]{.underline}

These advanced study institutes are unique in Japan for at least two
reasons, in addition to their exclusive focus on graduate education.
First their policies, including their broad research direction, are
established and overseen by external boards of distinguished scientists
from academia and industry. One result of this external oversight
arrangement is that, in principle, faculty enjoys somewhat less autonomy
in selecting and pursuing their research topics. Still, as in all
Japanese universities the full professors, designated as group leaders,
wield significant authority within their respective disciplinary
faculties. In exchange for some theoretical loss of autonomy on the part
of their faculties, the advanced study institutes are subject to fewer
of the regulations imposed on other national universities by the
Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture (Monbusho). These
regulations, in the opinion of many observers, constitute a significant
barrier to the potential of universities to contribute effectively to
the national research effort.

A second significant distinction between the advanced study institutes
and other national universities lies in the limited number of
disciplines encompassed. NAIST has only three faculties: the Graduate
School of Information Science which was established in 1992 and admitted
its first students in 1993; the Graduate School of Biological Sciences
which was also established in 1992 but did not admit its first students
until 1994; and the Graduate School of Materials Sciences which was
established in 1996 and will admit its first students in the fall of
1998. Each of the two former faculties has 20 full professors and 20
associate professors; each admits 125 students per year to its graduate
programs. Most students are admitted to the Masters program. However,
the number of Ph.D. candidates is increasing, and several post-doctoral
appointments are also becoming available. The Graduate School of
Materials Sciences will initially limit the number of students admitted
to 90.

Admission to all schools is based on a half-hour oral interview,
following prescreening based on undergraduate transcripts and written
recommendations. NAIST has instituted a relatively unique accelerated
degree program that permits qualified students to obtain their Masters
degrees in less than the canonical two years required elsewhere and
their Ph.D.s in less than three additional years. This flexibility is
designed in part to attract mature, mid-career students who already have
some working experience.

**Facilities.** The fact that there are so few disciplines represented
at NAIST permits a concentration of financial resources conspicuously
absent at other national universities. Each of its three graduate
faculties is housed in its own large and attractive new building; each
is well equipped with state of the art apparatus. Faculty point with
considerable pride, bordering on awe, to the bright, spacious
laboratories available to graduate students, in addition to the large
cubicles shared by only two graduate students and two PCsconditions
which contrast sharply with the cramped and aging facilities at many
national universities.

NAIST, as a new institution, was designed from the outset to take
advantage of modern information technologies. One of the first units
established was a central information technology center which provides
an institute-wide information environment based on ultra-high-speed
network facilities and distributed computer technologies. A wide-area
network provides connections to external academic networks in Japan and
abroad and also provides various types of educational activities related
to information technology. NAIST's digital library is a source of
particular pride. Currently, 120 monthly or quarterly editions of
scientific journals are being placed on the system on a regular basis,
with additional copyright permissions being sought to increase the
steady state number to 150. Since it opened in April 1996, the library
has digitized 250,000 pages of scientific publications and has recently
begun to digitize video productions as well. Access to the full contents
of the library is available to graduate students and faculty, as well as
to local industrial subscribers and selected faculty at other national
universities, on a 24-hour basis. Access to titles and abstracts is
available worldwide \[http://dlw3.aist-nara.ac.jp\].

**NAIST as a Pilot?** One refreshing characteristic of NAIST, at least
to a US observer, is the absence of inbreeding on its faculty. In the
older prestigious national universities, it is customary for the most
promising undergraduates who opt for advanced study in science to pursue
graduate work at the same institution, then become full-fledged though
junior members of research groups headed by the same professor who
supervised their dissertation research. Ultimately a few of these
academic aspirants manage to attain the rank of full professor, with the
right to organize their own research groups. As one result of this
system, mobility among Japanese university scientists (let alone
mobility from academia to industry, or vice-versa) is rare. As an
example, a Kyoto University administrator estimates that 80 percent of
the faculty were originally undergraduate and/or graduate students at
that institution!

Since NAIST admitted its first students in 1993, none of its faculty
could yet be its own graduates. Rather, faculty have been recruited from
universities in other parts of the country. Many were no doubt induced
to accept positions both because of the splendid research facilities
available and for the opportunity to participate in an exciting new
experiment in Japanese academic science. But the very novelty of the
institution may be a detriment to its effectiveness. Many, perhaps most
Japanese students aspiring to academic research careers are still more
comfortable about seeking admission to the graduate schools at
universities where they pursued their undergraduate studies, most of
which are far more prestigious institutions than NAIST or JAIST. Whether
these well endowed and imaginative advanced study institutes can
successfully surmount this deep-seated cultural barrier remains to be
seen.