Hitotsubashi University
Institute of Innovation Research

Knowledge Creation Process in Science:
Basic findings from a large-scale surveyof researchers in JapanSADAO NAGAOKAMASATSURA IGAMI
MANABU ETOTOMOHIRO IJICHI
IIR Working Paper WP#10-08

December 2010

Institute of Innovation Research
Hitotsubashi University
Tokyo, Japan
http://www.iir.hit-u.ac.jp

Knowledge Creation Process in Science:
Basic findings from a large‐scale survey ofresearchers in Japan

December, 2010
INSTITUTE OF INNOVATION RESEARCH (IIR), HITOTSUBASHI UNIVERSITYNATIONAL INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY (NISTEP)JOINT RESEARCH TEAMSADAO NAGAOKAMASATSURA IGAMI
MANABU ETOTOMOHIRO IJICHI

Knowledge Creation Process in Science：
Basic findings from a large‐scale survey of researchers in Japan
Sadao NAGAOKA
Masatsura IGAMI
Manabu ETO
Tomohiro IJICHI

December, 2010
Institute of Innovation Research (IIR), Hitotsubashi University
National Institute of Science and Technology Policy (NISTEP)
Joint Research Team

Please cite this report when you refer the contents of this report.

Table of Contents
SUMMARY...........................................................................................................................................1
1 BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE OF THE RESEARCH............................................................3
2 OVERVIEW OF THE SURVEY METHOD ....................................................................................7
2－1 Selection of the survey targets ...........................................................................................7
2－2 Implementation of the survey............................................................................................8
2－3 Field classification for the analysis....................................................................................8
2－4 Sector classification for the affiliation of scientists .........................................................9
2－5 Response rate by field .........................................................................................................10
2－6 Characteristics of the respondents ....................................................................................12
3 CHARACTERISTICS OF THE FOCAL PAPERS .........................................................................21
3－1 Importance of the focal paper in the field ........................................................................21
3－2 Importance of the focal paper among all outputs of the research project ...................21
3－3 Types of the outputs of the focal paper ............................................................................23
3－4 Determinants of citation frequency...................................................................................24
4 MOTIVATIONS FOR THE RESEARCH PROJECT AND UNCERTAINTIES INRESEARCH ...................................................................................................................................25
4－1 Motivations for the research project .................................................................................25
4－2 Uncertainties in research process and in research outcome ..........................................28
4－3 Serendipity ...........................................................................................................................31
5 RESEARCH COMPETITION..........................................................................................................33
6 KNOWLEDGE SOURCES AND RESEARCH MANAGEMENT ..............................................35
6－1 External knowledge sources that inspired the research project....................................35
6－2 Research management and its potential contributions ..................................................38
6－3 Use of advanced research facilities, databases, and the internet for
distant collaborators ..............................................................................................................43
7 RESEARCH TEAMS AS SEEN FROM AUTHORS......................................................................45
7－1 Number of authors ..............................................................................................................46
7－2 Number of collaborating researchers, students and technicians,
who are not coauthors on the paper ...................................................................................47
7－3 Scope of authors: who are the authors?............................................................................49
7－4 Combination of authors in academic/professional position..........................................50
7－5 Who are the first authors when the authors
are listed in order of their degree of contributions ...........................................................52
7－6 Diversity of authors in research team...............................................................................54i

8 INPUTS FOR RESEARCH PROJECTS ..........................................................................................57
8－1 Time between research project conception and the focal paper submission ..............57
8－2 Labor input for research projects.......................................................................................58
8－3 Amount of money spent for research projects.................................................................61
8－4 Sources of funds for research projects ..............................................................................63
9 OUTPUTS AND IMPACTS OF THE RESEARCH PROJECTS...................................................67
9－1 Number of refereed papers from research projects ........................................................67
9－2 Follow‐up research, commissioned research, joint research and technical guidance69
9－3 Graduate education through the research project ..........................................................72
9－4 Patent application, license agreement or patent assignment.........................................73
9－5 Establishment of start‐up company and contribution to the standardization............77
9－6 Other research results such as materials ..........................................................................79
9－7 Summary of the output of research projects....................................................................80
10 CONCLUSIONS .............................................................................................................................81
REFERENCES ......................................................................................................................................85

APPENDIX 1 FOR SURVEY METHODOLOGY
1 POPULATION AND SAMPLING: DATA SET AND IDENTIFICATION OF SURVEY
TARGETS .....................................................................................................................................87
1－1 Identification of focal papers .............................................................................................87
1－2 Identification of possible survey targets based on the focal papers .............................93
1－3 Selection of survey targets and focal papers....................................................................93
2 QUESTIONNAIRE ...........................................................................................................................97
3 IMPLEMENTATION OF THE SURVEY .......................................................................................99
3－1 Methods of implementing the survey...............................................................................99
3－2 Basic time‐line of the survey ..............................................................................................100
4 DATA CLEANING ...........................................................................................................................101
4－1 Outlines of data cleaning....................................................................................................101
5 CLASSIFICATIONS OF SCIENTIFIC FIELD ...............................................................................103
5－1 H projects and N projects ...................................................................................................103
5－2 Field classification of the multidisciplinary papers ........................................................103
5－3 Sector classification for affiliation of scientists ................................................................104
6 RESPONSES ......................................................................................................................................105
6－1 Responses by group and scientific field ...........................................................................105
6－2 Possible response biases .....................................................................................................106
APPENDIX 2
Questionnaire for the Survey on the Knowledge Creation Process in Science................... 109ii

Summary
This paper reports the initial findings from a large scale survey of Japanese researchers on theknowledge creation process in science. The survey was jointly conducted by the Institute of
Innovation Research of Hitotsubashi University and the National Institute of Science andTechnology Policy1. It collected 2,100 responses on research projects, one third of the sample arefrom highly cited papers (top 1% in the world, H papers hereafter) in each science field by year
and the rest of are from the other randomly selected papers (N papers hereafter). We call the
research projects that yielded H (N) papers by H (N) projects. The survey covered all scientificfields, including social sciences, and characterized the motivations of the research projects, theknowledge sources which inspired the projects, uncertainty in the knowledge creation process,research competition, composition of the research team, sources of research money, and theresearch outputs, including the papers, the patents, the collaborative research projects.
Major findings are as follow:
1.
A significant part of the research project are very importantly motivated both by ʺPursuit offundamental principles/understandingsʺ and by ʺSolving specific issues in real lifeʺ. Thus,
even if we define ʺPasteur’s quadrantʺ narrowly (both motivations are very important), it isquantitatively important in scientific research. The level of motivation is stronger in H
projects than in N projects for both objectives, but especially on ʺPursuit of fundamental
principles/understandingsʺ.
2.
A large majority of the focal papers involved surprise in either research process or in
research outcome. A majority of research projects generated serendipitous output (Theresearch output found answers to questions not originally posed). H papers involve more
surprises and serendipity.
3.
Most researchers recognize the extent of research competition ex‐ante (only a minority
chose ʺdon’t know answerʺ). A significant part of researchers were concerned with priority
loss (around 50% in H projects and around 30% in N projects).Competition is global in mostfields.
4.
There are significant differences in research management in terms of setting the researchgoal and the design of the research team across H projects and N projects.
5.
Research teams with more diversity in terms of disciplines and nationalities seem toperform better.
6.
Young scholars are important contributors for research efforts. Post‐doctoral students anddoctoral students are often the first authors of H papers (around 40%) when the order of theauthors is according to their contributions.
7.
Majority of research projects use more than one funding sources. While H projects use more
external funding source, only a minority of projects use only external funding.
8.
The distribution of the number of refereed papers produced from a project is highly

1

There is a corresponding Japanese Working Paper with detailed statistical tables, published in November 2010
on which this paper is based (available fromhttp://www.iir.hit‐u.ac.jp/iir‐w3/file/WP10‐07NagaokaIgamiEtoIjichi.pdf).

1

9.

10.
11.

skewed.
Research projects generate not only research papers, but also outputs useful for industrial
innovation, including patent applications, licensing/assignment, collaborative research,
startups and standard. This is more so for H projects. For an example, more than 40% (23%)
of the H projects (N projects) involved at least one patent application. 3 % (2%) of the H
projects (N projects) resulted in startups. 5% (3%) of H (N) projects led to standards.
A majority of licensing and assignment (70 to 80%) were associated with the provision ofknow‐how.
Educational outputs of the research projects are also important. 74% (65%) of H projects
produce doctoral degrees. The research projects also often produced materials and the otherresearch tools.

The paper also discusses the implications of these research findings on research on researchand on science policy.

2

1 BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE OF THE RESEARCH
Developing systematic and objective data on the knowledge creation process in science at
project level has become very important, given that science is expected to play an important rolein the innovation process of a nation and the knowledge creation process in science has become
more complex in recent years. Science has increasing become teamwork, requiring variety ofskills, knowledge and research equipments have become more expensive, while scientificcompetition has become more global. Active researches based on the bibliographic information
have been being conducted in recent years (see for an example, Wuchty, Jones, and Uzzi (2007)
and Jones, Wuchty and Uzzi (2008)). However, the information one can retrieve from thebibliographic information is limited. The bibliographic information does not provide theinformation about motivation for the research project, external knowledge sources that inspired
the research project, the history of the research project, research funding, and research outputs
and impacts. As one will later see, authors are often not researchers and researchers are often
not authors.
The Institute of Innovation Research of Hitotsubashi University and the National Institute of
Science and Technology Policy of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science andTechnology have decided to jointly carry out the ʺSurvey on the Knowledge Creation Process inScienceʺ. The purpose of this survey is to collect the objective data that show structuralcharacteristics in the knowledge creation process in science and the process of creating
innovation from scientific knowledge based on comprehensive questionnaire surveys forresearchers in all fields of science both in Japan and in the United States (more than seventhousand researchers each in the two countries). Japanese survey was conducted from the endof 2009 to the early summer of 2010 and totally 2,100 researchers responded to the survey. The
survey in the United States in collaboration with Georgina Institute of Technology has been
implemented since the autumn of 2010. This report covers the initial findings from the Japanesesurvey.
The survey tries to answer the following basic questions about scientific research. The
structural understandings of these issues will be valuable for designing of science policy, too.
1.

2.

3.
4.
5.

What percentage of research projects conducted by researchers is in pure basic research(“Bohr’s quadrant” in the classification of Stokes), use‐inspired basic research (Pasteur’squadrant), and pure applied research (Edison’s quadrant)?
How long does it take from the conceiving of the research projects to internationallyrecognized research outputs? What kind of research funds do researchers rely on in the
research project?
To what extent do researchers recognize ex ante the status of global competition in researchand how seriously are concerned over priority loss?
How important is the serendipity in research and which kind of research is more likely tospawn the serendipity?
To what extent research teams are interdisciplinary and international? How frequent do
3

6.
7.

researcher move across the organizations?
What kind of research management was implemented in research projects?
What percentage of the research outputs result in patents and how frequently the provisionof knowhow is involved? What about the production of the research tools.

What kinds of commercialization paths are pursued in the innovation processes based on the
outputs of scientific research? So far, comprehensive micro‐data set, covering the research
projects, the composition of the research team, research funding used in the research projects,
external knowledge sources that inspired the research project, serendipities in the research
projects, outputs yielded by the research projects have been constructed and basic analysis has
been conducted. This report summarizes the basic findings of the survey based on this.
The rest of the paper consists of the following 9 sections. Section 2 provides an overview of thesurvey method. More details are provided in the Appendix. Section 3 provides the characteristicsof the focal papers. Section 4 provides the results of the survey on the motivations for the
research and uncertainty in research both in the process and in the output. Section 5 discusses theresults on research competition. Section 6 discusses the results on knowledge sources andresearch management. Section 7 discusses the characteristics of research teams, based on thesurvey results on the authors of the focal paper. Section 8 discusses the results on the labor andthe other inputs for research projects. Section 9 discusses the outputs and the channels of impactsof the research projects on industrial innovation. Section 10 concludes.

4

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This research has been being conducted in collaboration between Institute of Innovation
Research (IIR) of Hitotsubashi University and National Institute of Science and Technology Policy(NISTEP) as a part of ʺIndustry‐university‐government joint research on the innovation processʺwith support of Special Funds for Education and Research of The Ministry of Education, Culture,
Sports, Science and Technology. This work has also been supported by JSPS KAKENHI 21243020．
US‐Japan Workshop on Scientific Collaboration and Productivity was held in March 2010 incollaboration with Georgia Institute of Technology, with support of the National Science
Foundation of the United States. The interim results of Japanese survey; various studies related
to the knowledge creation process; and experiences of researchers on the knowledge creation
process were presented. Workshop on the knowledge creation process in science was held in
October 2010. Basic findings of the survey were presented and productive discussions were held
about research management; challenges in science and technology policy; and research on
research. We would like to thank for the supports from the funding Ministry and organizations aswell as individuals who provided comments and suggestions to the project at various stages of
the research. In particular, we would like to thank the researchers who kindly became subject topre‐testing and provided very useful comments to the design of questionnaires and Terutaka
Kuwahara, the director of the NISTEP, who provided strong supports to the project. The researchteam of this project consists of the following and the survey in Japan was mainly designed,
developed and implemented by the first four members of the team (four authors of this paper),with helpful comments from the rest of the members .
Sadao NAGAOKA(PI)

Masatsura IGAMI

Manabu ETO
Tomohiro IJICHI

Professor, Institute of Innovation Research, Hitotsubashi
University
Affiliated Fellow, National Institute of Science and Technology
Policy, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science andTechnology
Research Counselor, Research Institute of Economy, Trade andIndustry
Senior Research Fellow, National Institute of Science andTechnology Policy, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports,
Science and Technology
Specially Appointed Associate Professor, Institute of Innovation
Research, Hitotsubashi University
Professor, Institute of Innovation Research, Hitotsubashi
University
Professor, Faculty of Innovation Studies, Seijo University
Visiting Researcher, Institute of Innovation Research,
Hitotsubashi University
Affiliated Fellow, National Institute of Science and Technology
Policy, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and5Hideo OWAN
Makoto NIREI
Hiroshi SHIMIZU
Paula E. STEPHANJohn WALSH

Technology
Professor, Institute of Social Science, the University of Tokyo
Associate Professor, Institute of Innovation Research,
Hitotsubashi University
Assistant Professor, Institute of Innovation Research,
Hitotsubashi University
Professor, Georgia State University
Associate Professor, Georgia Institute of Technology
International Affiliated Fellow, National Institute of Science andTechnology Policy, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports,
Science and Technology

62

OVERVIEW OF THE SURVEY METHOD

2－1 SELECTION OF THE SURVEY TARGETS
The survey targets were selected through the following procedures. Details in the selection
process were shown in the Appendix ʺSurvey Methodologyʺ of this report.
(1) Identification of possible focal papers
The population of the survey was articles and letters in the Web of Science database ofThomson Reuters. Reviews were excluded from the population. The objective of the review
papers is to conduct the survey of the existing studies, thus they are not likely to cover a research
project. The time window of the papers for the survey is from 2001 to 2006 (database year).
Database year refers to the year when the documents are recorded into the database. The
bibliographic information and the number of citations as of the end of December 2006 were usedin the survey. Two sets of the possible focal papers were selected from the population.
1.

Highly Cited Papers
Top 1% highly cited papers in each journal field (22 fields in total) and in each database
year; at least one organization of authors should be located in Japan (approximately 3,000 in
total).
2. “Normal” Papers
Randomly selected papers in each journal field and in each database year from the
population of the survey, excluding the above highly cited papers; at least one organizationof authors should be located in Japan (approximately 7,000).

In this report, highly cited papers are described as ʺH papersʺ and normal papers are describedas ʺN papers.ʺ The journal field refers the 22 science fields in the Essential Science Indicators (“ESI”
hereafter) of Thomson Reuters (see Exhibit 1). We covered all fields, including the social science,
although the coverage of social science journals by the database is not comprehensive and wehave got a relatively small number of the publications by Japanese authors in this field.
(2) Identification of Possible Survey targets and research projects for the survey
Corresponding authors or equivalents of approximately 10,000 possible focal papers weresearched and identified as survey targets. If multiple papers were assigned to a single author,
one paper was randomly selected as a focal paper while the priority was given to the H papers inthe selection process.
As a result, totally 7,652 survey targets were identified. Of those, there are 1,932 researchers
whose focal paper is the H paper; and there are 5,720 researchers whose focal paper is the N
paper.
This report describes the research projects that are from H papers as ʺH projectsʺ and describes
the research projects that are from N papers as ʺN projects.ʺ The project is defined as a series ofresearch activities in which the specified focal paper and the other closely related researchoutcomes were produced.

7

2－2 IMPLEMENTATION OF THE SURVEY
The questionnaire survey was conducted on the Web. A request of the cooperation to thesurvey, the web address of the questionnaire survey website, user ID, and password were sent to
the researchers by either e‐mail or post mail.
Questionnaires were sent by post, if researchers preferred paper‐based survey.
Questionnaires in English were also prepared for survey targets having difficulty in answering
the questionnaire in Japanese. If a researcher recommended another researcher, the request ofcooperation was sent again to the recommended researcher.
The basic time‐line of the survey was shown below. Other due date was set for newly
recommended survey targets, and survey targets whose focal papers were N papers in chemistry.


Survey launch: December 21, 2009
Initial due date: February 7, 2010
Reminders were sent twice (mid of Jan., mid of Feb.)
Final due date: April 11, 2010

2－3 FIELD CLASSIFICATION FOR THE ANALYSIS
Most results of the survey to be presented in this paper are based on 10 fields, aggregated from22 ESI journal fields. Some results are based on further large 3 fields obtained by a further
aggregation of the 10 fields. The relation between the 22 ESI journal fields, the 10 fields, and thelarge 3 fields is shown in Exhibit 1. Papers of multidisciplinary fields are reclassified into one of
21 fields based on the backward citations of the multidisciplinary papers.
Exhibit 1 Relation between the 22 ESI journal fields, the 10 fields, and the large 3 fields
22 ESI journal fields

10 fields

Chemistry

1_Chemistry

Materials Science

2_Materials Science

Physics
Space Science
Computer Science

3_Physics&Space_Science

Mathematics

4_Computer
Science&Mathematics

Engineering

5_Engineering

Environment/Ecology

6_Environment/Ecology&Geosc
iencesGeosciences
Clinical Medicine
Psychiatry/Psychology
Agricultural Sciences
Plant & Animal Sciencelarge fields

Physical Sciences

7_Clinical
Medicine
Medicine&Psychiatry/Psycholog
8.1_Agricultural Sciences&Plant& Animal Science

Biology & Biochemistry
Immunology
Microbiology
Biology & Biochemistry

Life Sciences
8.2_Basic Life Sciences

Neuroscience & Behavior
Pharmacology & Toxicology
Multidisciplinary
Economics & BusinessSocial Sciences, general

Either of 22 ESI journal fields was assigned Either of 22 ESI journal fields was assigned
based on the analysis of the backward
based on the analysis of the backward
citationscitations

S_Social Sciences8

9

2－4 SECTOR CLASSIFICATION FOR THE AFFILIATION OF SCIENTISTS
The survey asked a researcher to identify the sector of the organization with which he/she wasaffiliated when the focal paper was submitted. This sector is used for analysis. The five‐sector
classification shown below is used in this report.
（1） Higher education institutions（2） Public research institutions（3） Private firms（4） Private non‐profit organisations, including hospitals（5） Others
The higher education institutions include universities, inter‐university research institutions andcolleges of technology. The public research institutions include national experimental andresearch institutions, independent administrative corporations for research, special corporations
and experimental and research institutions of local governments.

10

2－5 RESPONSE RATE BY FIELD
Out of 7,562 survey targets, we got 2,081 responses. The total response rate is 27%. The
response rate is 29% for the H papers and 27% for the N papers. The response rate in the H
papers is higher than that in the N papers. Response rate by field is shown in Exhibit 2. The
fields shown in Exhibit 2 include multidisciplinary field. In this survey, the papers ofmultidisciplinary field, those published in the journals like Nature and Science, were reclassified
into either of 10 fields based on the references in the papers. The methodology was discussed in
the Part II. There are, however, thirteen papers that could not be reclassified. These papers
were excluded from the analysis by field.

The response rate exceeds 30% in chemistry; materials science; environment/ecology &geosciences; agricultural sciences & plant & animal science. The response rate in clinicalmedicine & psychiatry/psychology is 21% that is the lowest among the 10 fields excluding theresidual multidisciplinary field. Comparison between H papers and N papers by field showsthat the response rates in the H papers are higher than or equal to those in the N papers in almost
all fields. One exception is basic life sciences in which the response rate for the N papers is 4%
higher than that for the H papers.

Exhibit 2 Response rate by field
All Focal Papers
Surveytargets

H papers

Responded

Response
rate

Surveytargets

N papers

Responded

Responserate(A)

Surveytargets

Responded

Responserate(B)(A) - (B)

1_Chemistry

837

257

30.7%

208

71

34.1%

629

186

29.6%

4.6%

2_Materials Science

472

142

30.1%

127

43

33.9%

345

99

28.7%

5.2%

3_Physics&Space_Science

1407

380

27.0%

400

127

31.8%

1007

253

25.1%

6.6%

4_Computer
Science&Mathematics

323

77

23.8%

66

16

24.2%

257

61

23.7%

0.5%

5_Engineering

707

206

29.1%

197

68

34.5%

510

138

27.1%

7.5%

6_Environment/Ecology&Geosci
ences

361

115

31.9%

81

30

37.0%

280

85

30.4%

6.7%

7_Clinical
Medicine&Psychiatry/Psycholog

1278

264

20.7%

325

66

20.3%

953

198

20.8%

-0.5%

8.1_Agricultural Sciences&Plant& Animal Science

597

192

32.2%

165

60

36.4%

432

132

30.6%

5.8%

8.2_Basic Life Sciences

1504

404

26.9%

351

83

23.6%

1153

321

27.8%

-4.2%

9_Multidisciplinary(*)

13

2

15.4%

0

0

-

13

2

15.4%

-

S_Social Sciences

153

42

27.5%

12

2

16.7%

141

40

28.4%

-11.7%

7,652

2,081

27.2%

1,932

566

29.3%

5,720

1,515

26.5%

2.8%

Total

Note1: (*) Papers in multidisciplinary field that could not be reclassified.

11

2－5－1 Field Composition of the Respondents by Two Types of the Papers
The field composition of the respondents is shown in Exhibit 3. The composition of
respondents is the almost same between H papers and N papers in many fields, reflecting ourdesign of the sample population. The share in the H papers is 5.7% higher than that of the N
papers in physics & space science and the share of the N projects is 6.6% higher than that of the H
papers in basic life sciences.
The field dependence of the magnitude and direction of the differentials in responses between
the H and N projects is small in most questions. Thus no correction based on the weight offields is made for comparison of the statistics across the H and N projects. We have confirmedthat the results of the N projects only show slight changes even if the averages are adjusted basedon the weights of fields in H projects.
Exhibit 3 Field composition of the respondents
1_Chemistry
2_Materials Science
H papers

13%

8%

22%

3% 12%

5%

12%

11%

15% 0%

3_Physics&Space_Science
4_Computer Science&Mathematics
5_Engineering
6_Environment/Ecology&Geosciences
7_Clinical Medicine&Psychiatry/Psychology

N papers

12%

7%

17%

4% 9%

6%

13%

9%

21%

3%

8.1_Agricultural Sciences&Plant & Animal
Science
8.2_Basic Life Sciences
S_Social Sciences

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

12

100%

2－6 CHARACTERISTICS OF THE RESPONDENTS
2－6－1 Age
Exhibit 4 summarizes the age distribution of the respondents, at the time when the survey was
conducted (the first part of 2010) and when the focal paper was submitted. There exist around 7
years’ difference between the two average ages, which reflect both the lag between thesubmission and the publication as well as that between the publication and the survey.
Average ages of respondents in all fields when the survey was conducted are 50.0 in the H
papers and 51.4 in the N papers. The share of the respondents whose age is 44 or less is morethan 30% in 4 fields, i.e., materials science; physics & space science; computer science &mathematics; and Engineering, of the H papers and in 3 fields, i.e., physics & space science;computer science & mathematics; and social sciences, of the N papers. The share of age groupof 25 to 34 years old reaches 13% in computer science & mathematics of the H projects.
As for submission age, the average ages of respondents in all fields are 42.6 in the H papers
and 43.9 in the N papers. The average ages of both types of papers are 7 years younger
compared to the average age when the survey was conducted, i.e., average ages in 2010. The
focal papers were published between 2001 and 2006. Considering around one year time‐lag
between the submission and the publication of the focal papers, it could be said that there would
be 5 – 10 years time‐lag between the submission of the focal papers and 2010. This will explain
the differential between the average ages of respondents when the focal paper was submitted andwhen the survey was conducted. The ratio of respondents whose age is 34 or less is more than
30% in computer science & mathematics both in the H papers and N papers.

13

Exhibit 4 Age distribution of respondents(a) Ages when the survey was conducted

All_Sci_H(564) 2%
All_Sci_N(1510) 3%

29%
22%

1_Chem_H(71) 3%
1_Chem_N(185)

23%
18%

2_Mat_Sci_H(43)2_Mat_Sci_N(99)

23%

38%
30%
42%

5%

39%
29%

4_Comp_Sci&Math_H(16)4_Comp_Sci&Math_N(61)

13%
5%

30%

14%
24%
21%

38%

30%

33%

23%
23%

8.1_Agr_Sci&Plant&Anim_Sci_H(60) 2%
8.1_Agr_Sci&Plant&Anim_Sci_N(132) 2%

27%
24%

43%
34%

30%
6%
4%

27%

5%
9%

30%

49%

23%

42%
38%

10%

20%

30%

‐ 24

25 ‐ 34

35 ‐ 44

5%
8%

35%

23%

0%

8%

27%
22%

40%
34%

10%

11%
7%

29%

44%
49%

22%
14%

6%
2%

21%
36%

30%

7_Clin_Med&Psy/Psy_H(66)
7_Clin_Med&Psy/Psy_N(197) 2%

5%
9%

13%
30%

34%

20%
26%

9%
9%

31%
32%
34%

25%

6_Env/Eco&Geo_H(30) 7%
6_Env/Eco&Geo_N(85) 2%

S_Social_Sci_H(2)
S_Social_Sci_N(40)

33%

31%

5_Eng_H(66) 5%
5_Eng_N(138) 2%

17%
11%

28%

36%

6%

7%
8%

28%

40%

3_Phys&_Space_Sci_H(127)3_Phys&Space_Sci_N(253)8.2_Basic_Life_Sci_H(83) 1%
8.2_Basic_Life_Sci_N(320)

24%
29%

38%

40%

45 ‐ 5423%

50%
55 ‐ 64

60%

70%

80%

8%
90%

100%

65 ‐

(b) Ages when the focal paper was submitted
All_Sci_H(561)
All_Sci_N(1493)

20%
17%

1_Chem_H(71)
1_Chem_N(182)

14%
11%

2_Mat_Sci_H(43)2_Mat_Sci_N(96)

16%

29%

32%
34%

34%
37%

20%
20%

7_Clin_Med&Psy/Psy_H(66)
7_Clin_Med&Psy/Psy_N(196)

14%
17%

8.1_Agr_Sci&Plant&Anim_Sci_H(60)
8.1_Agr_Sci&Plant&Anim_Sci_N(130)

12%
17%

8.2_Basic_Life_Sci_H(81)8.2_Basic_Life_Sci_N(320)

39%
44%
32%

19%
27%

30%
38%

47%
26%

39%

38%

36%
39%

25%

35%

‐ 24

25 ‐ 34

35 ‐ 4440%

45 ‐ 54

14%
28%

50%
55 ‐ 6460%
65 ‐In each field, the upper figure is for the H papers and the lower figure is for the N papers.
Result of social sciences in the H papers was not shown due to the small number of responses.

14

8%
18%

44%

30%

8% 2%
7%

30%
27%

37%

3%
1%

14%

32%

50%
37%

20%

6%
8%
11% 2%
13%

38%

43%

10%

12%
18%
1%

27%

36%

0%

3%
2%

10%
14% 2%

25%

26%

12%
8%

S_Social_Sci_H(2)
S_Social_Sci_N(40)

22%

34%

23%
23%

6_Env/Eco&Geo_H(30)
6_Env/Eco&Geo_N(84)

12%
31%

31%
32%

5_Eng_H(66) 2%
5_Eng_N(136)

17%
16%

49%
34%

29%
24%

4_Comp_Sci&Math_H(16)4_Comp_Sci&Math_N(60) 2%

10%
14% 1%

32%

28%

3_Phys&_Space_Sci_H(126)
3_Phys&Space_Sci_N(249)Note1:
Note2:

40%
36%

70%

7%
2%

13%
80%

90%

100%

2－6－2 Sector Composition of the Respondents When the Focal Paper Was Submitted
Exhibit 5 shows the sector composition of the organizations with which the respondents wereaffiliated when the focal paper was submitted. Higher education institutions (HEIs) have thelargest share both in the H papers and N papers (70 % and almost 80% respectively), followed by
the public research institutions (PRIs). The share of the two sectors combined accounts for 90%of the total. It is however important to note that the response rates of private businesses andprivate non‐profit organizations were substantially lower (by around 30 %).
The share of the public organization is more than 20% in environment/ecology andgeosciences; and agricultural sciences & plant & animal science in both the H papers and N
papers. The share of the public organization is very large, i.e., 42%, in agricultural sciences &plant & animal science of the H papers. The share of the public organization is also more than
20% in materials science and basic life sciences of the H papers.
The share of the business enterprises is more than 10% in materials science; physics & spacescience; and Engineering for both H papers and the N papers.
Exhibit 5 Sector of the organization with which the respondents were affiliatedwhen the focal paper was submitted
All_Sci_H(566)
All_Sci_N(1511)

70%

21%
78%

1_Chem_H(71)
1_Chem_N(185)

85%
81%

2_Mat_Sci_H(43)2_Mat_Sci_N(99)23%

3_Phys&_Space_Sci_H(127)3_Phys&Space_Sci_N(253)72%

4_Comp_Sci&Math_H(16)4_Comp_Sci&Math_N(61)

75%

13%
15%
13%
19%

89%
16%
76%

15%
13%

10%

70%
66%

27%
28%
83%
79%

15%
42%

64%

8.2_Basic_Life_Sci_H(83)8.2_Basic_Life_Sci_N(321)

27%
79%

S_Social_Sci_H(2)
S_Social_Sci_N(40)

5% 2%
7%

13%
90%

0%
1. Higher education institutions

10%

20%

30%

2. Public research institutions

40%
3. Private firms

2%
2% 5%
7%
6% 2%

27%

66%

1%1%
3%
4%1%
1%

13%

52%

2%
5%
6%
8%

3%

66%

8.1_Agr_Sci&Plant&Anim_Sci_H(60)
8.1_Agr_Sci&Plant&Anim_Sci_N(132)

3%1%
1%
10%

81%

7_Clin_Med&Psy/Psy_H(66)
7_Clin_Med&Psy/Psy_N(197)

4%
5%

14%

82%

6_Env/Eco&Geo_H(30)
6_Env/Eco&Geo_N(85)Note3:

11%
14%

63%

5_Eng_H(68)
5_Eng_N(138)

Note1:
Note2:

7%
6% 1%

14%

10%
50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

4. Private non‐profit organisations

5.Other

100%

In each field, the upper figure is for the H papers and the lower figure is for the N papers.
The higher education institutions include universities, inter‐university research institutions and colleges of technology. The publicresearch institutions include national experimental and research institutions, independent administrative corporations, special
corporations and experimental and research institutions of local governments.
Result of social sciences in the H projects was not shown due to a very small number of responses.

15

2－6－3 Roles of the Respondents in the Research Projects
This section summarizes 1) the role of respondents in the management and 2) the role of the
respondents in the implementation of the research project that produced the focal paper.
As shown in Exhibit 6, in at all fields of the H projects, 54% of the respondents played theleading role in the management, i.e., the design of the research project, administration of theresearch project, and application for the research grant. Including the respondents who were amember of the research management but less than that of the leader (24%), approximately 80% of
respondents played at least some role in the management. Very similarly, about 80% of
respondents from the N projects were a member of research management.
Management was not necessary for a small project, although it is a minority (less than 10% in
both types of projects). The share of the response of ʺManagement was not necessaryʺ is large incomputer science & mathematics and social sciences, compared to other fields. Our survey also
revealed that the number of authors and the amount of research funds in these two fields are
relatively small, compared to other fields, indicating that management becomes more importantas the project becomes larger and more complex.
A fairly large share of the respondents (20 – 30%) did not play a managerial role inenvironment/ecology and geosciences and physics & space science of the H projects. One
possible explanation of this is that many of the respondents are the researchers who participatedin the international research project led by another country. The analysis of the internationalco‐authorship showed that these two fields exhibit relatively high probability of internationalco‐authorship compared to other fields.
Next we look at the role of respondents in the implementation of research projects, as shown in
Exhibit 7. 67% of respondents in the H projects said they executed the central part of theresearch and contributed the most to the research output. Including the respondents who took
part in the central part of the research but their contribution was not as substantial as the above
central researcher; approximately 90% of respondents executed the central part of the research.
About 90% of respondents in the N projects also executed the central part of the research. Thus,
we can conclude that most respondents have a very good knowledge of the research project aswell as of its management.

16

Exhibit 6 Role of respondents in the management
All_Sci_H(566)
All_Sci_N(1513)
1_Chem_H(71)
1_Chem_N(186)

44%

18%
25%

13%
9%

26%

48%
58%
64%

8.1_Agr_Sci&Plant&Anim_Sci_H(60)
8.1_Agr_Sci&Plant&Anim_Sci_N(132)

63%
61%

8.2_Basic_Life_Sci_H(83)8.2_Basic_Life_Sci_N(321)

7%

20%
33%

23%

7_Clin_Med&Psy/Psy_H(66)
7_Clin_Med&Psy/Psy_N(198)10%8% 2%2%
11%
7%
5%

27%
19%
13%

18%

35%
30%

(b) A member of the research management

8%
10%

25%
17%

40%

50%

(c) No managerial role

70%

6%
5%
5%

30%

60%

2%
1%

14%
8%

18%

71%

5%

12%

20%

60%

20%

7%
4% 3%
8%

16%

64%

10%

2%
4%

21%

21%

30%

0%

12%
11%
13%

10%

7%

56%

S_Social_Sci_H(2)
S_Social_Sci_N(40)

2%
2%

31%

13%
56%

6_Env/Eco&Geo_H(30)
6_Env/Eco&Geo_N(85)

12%
9%

5%

19%
14%

21%

50%

5_Eng_H(68)
5_Eng_N(138)

8%

40%
66%

4_Comp_Sci&Math_H(16)4_Comp_Sci&Math_N(61)(a) A leading role

22%

47%
42%

3%1%
4% 1%

18%

77%

3_Phys&_Space_Sci_H(127)3_Phys&Space_Sci_N(253)

7% 2%
2%
9%

13%
8%

19%

65%

2_Mat_Sci_H(43)2_Mat_Sci_N(99)Note1:
Note2:

24%

54%
61%

80%

90%

(d) Management was not necessary

100%(e)その他

In each field, the upper figure is for the H papers and the lower figure is for the N papers.
Result of social sciences in the H projects was not shown due to the small number of responses.

Exhibit 7 Role of the respondents in the implementation of the research project
All_Sci_H(566)
All_Sci_N(1511)
1_Chem_H(71)
1_Chem_N(184)23%

3% 3% 5%5% 2% 4%

21%
24%

68%
65%

4_Comp_Sci&Math_H(16)4_Comp_Sci&Math_N(61)

81%

13%

6%
3%

16%
14%

4% 1%
2% 3%

13%
8%

7%
2% 5%

9%

6%
5% 3% 3%

5%

8%
6%

34%

62%

5_Eng_H(68)
5_Eng_N(138)

78%
80%
37%

43%

7_Clin_Med&Psy/Psy_H(66)
7_Clin_Med&Psy/Psy_N(198)2% 5% 2%
5% 3%

16%
20%

74%
72%

3_Phys&_Space_Sci_H(127)3_Phys&Space_Sci_N(253)

15%

69%

11%
15%

23%

52%
75%

8.1_Agr_Sci&Plant&Anim_Sci_H(60)
8.1_Agr_Sci&Plant&Anim_Sci_N(132)65%

8.2_Basic_Life_Sci_H(83)8.2_Basic_Life_Sci_N(321)

59%
63%

22%
20%

72%

S_Social_Sci_H(2)
S_Social_Sci_N(40)

2% 5%

23%
26%
70%

(a) Central part of the research0%
and contributed
10% the most20%30%(c) Implemented the research under the guidance of the above members(b) Part
the research70%
40%in the central
50% part of 60%

In each field, the upper figure is for the H papers and the lower figure is for the N papers.
Result of social sciences in the H projects was not shown due to the small number of responses.

17

20%

11%
5% 2% 4%5% 3% 3%80%90%(d) Through the provision of materials, data, equipments, or facilities(e) Other

Note1:
Note2:

10% 1%
7% 1% 6%89%
63%

2_Mat_Sci_H(43)2_Mat_Sci_N(99)

6_Env/Eco&Geo_H(30)
6_Env/Eco&Geo_N(85)4% 4% 5%5% 1% 4%

20%
21%

67%
68%

100%

2－6－4 Research Career of the Respondents
An overview of the research careers of the respondents is shown in this section. Exhibit 8
shows the distribution of the highest academic degree of the respondent when the research
project was launched. The share of the scientists with a Ph. D or a M. D. is the largest in all
sectors in both the H projects and N projects. It is the largest in the HEIs (HEIs), followed by the
public research institutions (PRIs), and then by the private firms. The share of respondents
whose highest degree was Master’s degree or below is large in private firms compared to othersectors. In the private firms for the N projects, 37% of the respondents have Master’s degrees as
the highest degree and around 10% of respondents have Bachelor’s or lower degree as the highest
degree.
Exhibit 8 Highest degree of respondents when the research project was launched

All_sectors_H(566)88%All_sectors_N(1514)

10% 2%
11% 5%

83%

HEIs_H(399)

92%

6%2%

HEIs_N(1181)

86%

8% 5%

PRIs_H(117)

83%

15%

PRIs_N(219)80%

Private_firms_H(41)

15%

66%

Private_firms_N(86)

24%

51%

60%

80%

Master’s degree (incl. partial completion of Ph.D.)
Bachelor’s degree, Technical college, junior college
Other

Note1:

In each sector, the upper figure is for the H papers and the lower figure is for the N papers.

18

3%
1%

7% 2%
10% 1%

37%

0%
20%
40%
Ph.D.or M.D. (incl. doctorate paper)

2%

100%

In the HEIs and the private firms, the share of respondents who won a distinguished paper
award or a conference award from an academic society is higher in the H projects than in the N
projects. About 60% of the respondents of the H papers in the HEIs won the award (Exhibit
9(a)).
In the HEIs, the share of the respondents who served on an editorial board of an international
journal is larger in the H projects, compared to those in the N projects. Looking across thesectors, the share is the highest in the HEIs, followed by the PRIs and the private firms (Exhibit
9(b)).
More than a half of respondents of the H papers in the HEIs and those in the PRIs stayed inabroad for one year or more for study or research before the initiation of the project. The shareof such respondents is 10% larger for the H projects than for the N projects in the publicorganization group. The share of the respondents who stayed in abroad for one year or more issmaller in the private firms compared to that in the other sectors. The share is 22% for the
respondents with the H papers and 17% for those with the N papers.
The share of the respondents who changed academic or research positions across organizationsin the five years proceeding to the initiation of the project is high, 30 – 40% of those in the HEIs
and the PRIs. The share in the private firms is relatively small compared to these sectors. In
the HEIs, the share of the scientists of the H papers who moved among is 10% higher than that in
the N papers.

19

Exhibit 9 Research career of the respondents when the research project was launched (1)(a) Respondents who won a distinguished paper award or a conference award from an academic society(b) Respondents who served on an editorial board of an international journal
(a)

(b)

All_sectors_H(562)54%

All_sectors_N(1505)

46%

44%

HEIs_H(395)

56%

59%

HEIs_N(1173)

40%

60%

All_sectors_N(1504)

36%

64%

HEIs_H(396)

41%

47%

All_sectors_H(562)45%

HEIs_N(1172)

53%

55%

39%

61%

PRIs_H(117)

38%

62%

PRIs_H(117)

26%

74%

PRIs_N(219)

41%

59%

PRIs_N(219)

27%

73%

Private_firms_H(41)

44%

56%

Private_firms_H(40)

15%

85%

Private_firms_N(86)

16%

84%

Private_firms_N(86)

22%

0%

Note1:

10%

78%

20%

30%

40%

Yes

No

50%

60%

70%

80%

0%

90% 100%

10%

20%

30%

40%

Yes

No

50%

60%

70%

80%

90% 100%

80%

90% 100%

In each sector, the upper figure is for the H papers and the lower figure is for the N papers

Exhibit 10 Research career of the respondents when the research project was launched (2)(a) Respondents who stayed in abroad for one year or more for study or research(b) Respondents who changed academic or research positions across organizations in the preceding five years
(a)

(b)

All_sectors_H(563)

54%

46%

All_sectors_H(563)All_sectors_N(1505)

50%

50%

All_sectors_N(1505)

40%

60%

33%

67%

HEIs_H(396)

58%

42%

HEIs_H(396)

HEIs_N(1173)

55%

45%

HEIs_N(1174)

PRIs_H(117)

51%

49%

PRIs_H(117)

39%

61%

PRIs_N(218)

35%

65%

PRIs_N(219)

39%

61%

Private_firms_H(41)

22%

78%

Private_firms_H(41)Private_firms_N(86)

17%

83%

Private_firms_N(86)0%Note1:

10%

20%

30%

40%

Yes

No

50%

60%

70%

80%

90% 100%

In each sector, the upper figure is for the H papers and the lower figure is for the N papers

20

43%

57%

33%

67%

15%

85%

21%

0%

10%

79%

20%

30%

40%

Yes

No

50%

60%

70%

This page intentionally left blank21

3

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE FOCAL PAPERS

3－1 IMPORTANCE OF THE FOCAL PAPER IN THE FIELD
In the design of the target for this survey, we used the number of citations as a proxy tomeasure the importance of the research papers, and selected the H papers based on that measure.
The self‐evaluation of respondents also supports our assumption as seen in Exhibit 11. For thisexhibit, we asked a respondent to assess the importance of the focal paper compared to the global
research findings in the same field during the same period (published within a year before orafter the focal paper was published). H papers have significantly higher shares of being
recognized by the respondent as the research papers having relatively high self‐ evaluation thanthe N papers.
Looking at the H projects, 39% of the respondents thought that the focal paper was one of themost important papers, ranking within the top 1% in the world and 82% of the respondents
thought that the focal papers rank within the top 10% in the world. In contrast, 9% of
respondents of the N projects ranked the focal papers in the top 1%, 37% of respondents ranked
the focal papers in the top 10%. The share of ʺa relatively important paper, ranking within the
top 25%ʺ is the largest in the N papers. The Web of Science database of Thomson Reuters, fromwhich the focal papers were sampled, collects only those academic journals that fulfill thesignificance criteria set by Thomson Reuters. Thus, there is a possibility that a paper ofrelatively important outputs of the research project were sampled as the focal paper of the survey
even for N papers.

3－2 IMPORTANCE OF THE FOCAL PAPER AMONG ALL OUTPUTS OF THE RESEARCH PROJECTThe H papers are significantly likely to receive the highest evaluations among all outputs of theresearch project, compared to the N papers, as shown in Exhibit 12. 58% of respondents in the H
projects think that the focal paper is ʺone of the most significant papers (one of the top 3) among
all the research findings of the research projectʺ. This clearly indicates that the H papers often
represent the papers of high importance in the outputs of the research projects, although at thesame time it also shows that important papers seem to appear simultaneously from the same
project so that even most highly cited papers (top 1 % paper) is often not the best paper for suchproject. 31% of respondents in the N projects also think that the focal paper is ʺone of the mostsignificant papers (one of the top 3)ʺ.

22

Exhibit 11 Importance of the focal paper in the global research findings

60%

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

0%

39% 9%

43% 28%

14% 34%2% 19%

0% 6%

1% 3%

(a) Top 1%(b) Top10%(c) Top25%(d) Top 50%(e) Bottom half(f) Other

H projects
Note1:
Note2:

N projects

The self‐evaluation of the importance of the focal paper in the global research findings in the same field during the same period (publishedwithin a year before or after the focal paper was published).
The result of all fields.

Exhibit 12 Importance of the focal paper among all outputs of the project

60%

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

0%

58% 31%(a) Most
significant(Top3)

36% 44%

5%

1%

4%

(b) Relatively high (c) Intermediate level (d) Not a significant
significanceof significanceH projects

Note1:
Note2:

20%

N projects

The self‐evaluation of the importance of the focal paper among all outputs of the project.
The result of all fields.

23

1%

2%

(e) Other3－3 TYPES OF THE OUTPUTS OF THE FOCAL PAPER
Exhibit 13 shows how often “highly relevant” are the 10 types of research outputs of the focal
paper. The results showed the share of ʺHighly relevantʺ in 5‐level Likert scale. The share of
ʺHighly relevantʺ is higher in the all types of the outputs in the H projects than in the N projects,
although the order of the types of research outputs in terms of its frequency (%, “Highly
relevant”) is very similar between H papers and N papers. ʺProposing a new research issueʺ,“understanding a phenomenon” and “developing a new hypothesis or developing theory” arethe types of the outputs that are highly relevant most frequently. The share of ʺHighly relevantʺ isthe highest in ʺProposing a new research issueʺ of the H projects. The differential between the H
and N projects is more than 15% in this item. Proposing a new research issue means the provisionof new research theme to the research community. Some research issues would result in theemergence of new research areas. This result is consistent with the fact that “contribution to thedevelopment of research in related field” was chosen very frequently (60%, only next to “highNovelty”) by the respondents of the H papers as a reason significantly explaining why theirpaper was highly cited as we will see in the next section.
Exhibit 13 Types of research outputs of the focal paper (%, highly relevant)(i) Proposing a new research issue

39%
23%

(d) Understanding a phenomenon

34%
29%

(a) Developing a new hypothesis or theory

33%
25%

(c) Discovering an unknown phenomenon/material

30%
18%

(b) Support/reject an existing hypothesis or theory

25%
16%

(e) Developing a new research method

24%
16%

(g) Creating a new function, mechanism, or material

24%
16%

(j) Proposing a solution to a social issue

18%
12%

(f) Improving an existing research method

12%
10%

(h) Improving on an existing function, mechanism, or material

7%
6%
0%

H projects
Note1: The results show the share of ʺhighly relevantʺ in 5‐level Likert scale.
Note2: The result of all fields.

24

5%

10%

N projects

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

3－4 DETERMINANTS OF CITATION FREQUENCY
Since we selected the H papers based on the relative frequency of being cited, an additionalquestion on the determinants of citation frequency was posed to the survey targets with the H
papers. Exhibit 14 shows the results.
The respondents in the H projects pointed out that ʺ(a) Novelty of the research results,ʺ ʺ(c)Contribution to the development of research in related fields,ʺ and ʺ(e) Value of data andinformation contained in the paperʺ as three most important determinants that influenced the(forward) citations of their papers. Whole the top three determinants were related to the qualityof the research findings, ʺ(m) Published in a prestigious academic journalʺ was thought the fourth
determinant of citation frequency.
In contrast, less than 10% of respondents noted that ʺ(f) Use of cutting‐edge facilities andequipment in the researchʺ, ʺ(i) Highly recognized author (co‐author)ʺ, ʺ(l) A large size of
research community who potentially cite the paperʺ had strong effect on the citation frequency of
their paper. Since bibliometric analysis shows that internationally co‐authored papers tend to
get more citations compared to the domestic papers, there may be a discrepancy between therecognition of the respondents and bibliometric analysis that merits a further analysis.

Exhibit 14 Determinants of citation frequency (%, strong impact)(a) Novelty of the research results

70%(c) Contribution to the development of research in related… 60%(e) Value of data and information contained in the paper

45%(m) Published in a prestigious academic journal

33%(k) Addresses a very topical research theme31%(b) Novelty of the research method

28%(g) Interdisciplinary research output

21%(d) Potential technical applications

19%(o) Other17%(n) Cited by renowned researchers or papers

16%(j) Expected contribution to solving social issues

15%(h) Output of international research cooperation

9%(l) A large size of research community who potentially cite the … 8%(i) Highly recognized author (co‐author)

7%(f) Use of cutting‐edge facilities and equipment in the research

7%0%

H projects
Note1:
Note2:The results show the share of ʺstrong impactʺ in 5‐level Likert scale.
The result of all fields.

25

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

MOTIVATIONS FOR THE RESEARCH PROJECT AND UNCERTAINTIESIN RESEARCH
4

4－1 MOTIVATIONS FOR THE RESEARCH PROJECT
According to Stokes (1997), the traditional framework to place a research along one dimension
from basic research to applied research is incomplete, since research often has dual motivations.
Stokes proposed the ʺquadrant model of scientific researchʺ. In this model a Pasteur’s quadrant
covers such ʺuse‐inspired basic researchʺ exemplified by the research by Pasteur, while Bohr’s
quadrant covers pure basic research and Edison’s quadrant covers pure applied research.
Adopting this framework, we asked each researcher to evaluate the importance of the following
two basic motivations for initiating the research project that yielded the focal paper and the otherclosely related papers: (1) pursuit of fundamental principles/understandings and (2) solving
specific issues in real life. ʺPursuit of fundamental principles/understandingsʺ is defined to begaining a new knowledge of the principles, underlying natural phenomenon and observed facts,
through experiments and/or theoretical analyses and ʺsolving specific issues in real lifeʺ is defined
to be solving practical and specific problems such as for industrial applications, following Frascati
Manual of OECD.
Collecting response to this question on two motivations at project level has allowed us toquantitatively assess how important each quadrant is in each scientific field. Such information
would be very important, since the Pasteur’s quadrant may play an important bridge between
science research and engineering research (Stokes (1997)). As far as we know, there is no
systematic quantitative evidence available for the importance of Pasteur’s quadrant (see however,Comroe and Dripps (1976), for a very detailed study on the key papers for open‐heart surgery
from this perspective).
Exhibit 15 shows the aggregate results. 62% of the researchers for H projects, that is, the projects
which produced the top 1% highly cited papers, regard the pursuit of fundamental
principles/understandings as a very important motivation for the project; 29% of them regard
solving specific issues in real life as very important motivations for the project. The corresponding
ratios of the researchers for the N projects are 46% and 24% respectively. Thus, the level ofmotivation is stronger in H projects than in N projects for the two objectives, but especially forʺpursuit of fundamental principles/understandingsʺ. The projects for which both motivations arevery important amount to 14% of the H projects and 8% of the N projects. Thus, even if we defineʺPasteur’s quadrantʺ relatively narrowly as the group of the projects for which both motivations
are very important (not just important), it constitutes a significant share of the research projects.
This supports the Stokes’s view that placing the scientific research projects along one dimension
from ʺpursuit of fundamental principles/understandingsʺ to ʺsolving specific issues in real lifeʺ is
not adequate. If we define ʺBohr’s quadrantʺ as a group of the projects where only ʺpursuit offundamental principles/understandingsʺ is very important, 48% (38%) of the projects belong to
Bohr’s quadrant in the H projects (N projects). If we define ʺEdison’s quadrantʺ as a group of the
projects where only ʺsolving specific issues in real lifeʺ is very important, 14% (16%) of the projects
belong to Edison’s quadrant in the H projects (N projects).
There are significant variations in the importance of each objective by field, as shown in Exhibit
2616. ʺPursuit of fundamental principles/understandingsʺ is a very important motivation in physics& space science, basic life sciences, chemistry, and agriculture sciences, accounting for more than
60% of the H projects. On the other hand, ʺSolving specific issues in real lifeʺ is very important inengineering, clinical medicine & psychiatry/psychology, materials science, accounting for morethan 40% of the projects. The level of motivation for ʺPursuit of fundamental
principles/understandingsʺ is stronger in H projects than in N projects in most science fields,
especially in materials science, physics & space science, and clinical medicine &psychiatry/psychology (more 20 percentage point difference). However, the motivation forsolving specific issues in real life is weaker for H projects than for N projects in agriculturesciences, environment/ecology & geosciences and computer science & mathematics. Combining
the two, we can say that ʺPasteur’s quadrantʺ is especially important in clinical medicine &psychiatry/psychology, materials science, and engineering for H projects.
Exhibit 15 Distribution of the projects by a quadrant model(a)Motivations for the H Projects

Note1:

Solving specific issues in real life
Other
Very important

14%

38%

71%

29%

100%

The result of all fields.

27

Very important

23%

38%

8%

46%

Other

62%

total

38%

16%

54%

total

14%

Pursuit of fundamental
principles/understandings

Very important

48%

Other

total

total

Pursuit of fundamental
principles/understandings

Solving specific issues in real life
Other
Very important(b)Motivations for the N Projects

76%

24%

100%

Exhibit 16 Motivations for initiating the research projects by field (%, ʺvery importantʺ)(a) Pursuit of fundamental principles/understandings

8.2_Basic_Life_Sci

62%
46%
63%
50%
53%
31%
80%
59%
44%
44%
40%
40%
50%
46%
53%
25%
63%
43%
71%
55%

S_Social_Sci

40%

All_Sci
1_Chem2_Mat_Sci
3_Phy&Space_Sci
4_Com_Sci&Math
5_Eng
6_Env/Eco&Geo
7_Clin_Med&Psy/Psy
8.1_Agr_Sci&Plant&Anim_Sci

0%

10%

20%

30%

H projects

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

N projects(b) Solving specific issues in real life

8.2_Basic_Life_Sci

29%
24%
21%
21%
40%
35%
24%
17%
19%
21%
51%
39%
13%
22%
42%
25%
17%
29%
24%
17%

S_Social_Sci

28%

All_Sci
1_Chem2_Mat_Sci
3_Phy&Space_Sci
4_Com_Sci&Math
5_Eng
6_Env/Eco&Geo
7_Clin_Med&Psy/Psy
8.1_Agr_Sci&Plant&Anim_Sci

0%

10%

20%

30%

H projects
Note1:
Note2:

40%
N projects

The results show the share of ʺvery importantʺ in 5‐level Likert scale.
Result of social sciences in the H projects was not shown due to the small number of responses.

28

4－2 UNCERTAINTIES IN RESEARCH PROCESS AND IN RESEARCH OUTCOME
Productive research has to add something new relative to the existing stock of knowledge anduncertainty in research can be a very important part of acquiring such novelty. There can be two
scenarios of acquiring such novelty: getting a novel research idea which is proven in the research
process as initially expected, or novelty is acquired during the course of the research due to its
uncertain process or outcome. Compared to inventions, where targeted outcome is often
important (see Nagaoka and Walsh (2009a)), uncertainty can be more important in scientificresearch. In order to clarify this, our survey asked the researcher to evaluate the importance of
uncertainty in both research process and outcome. More specifically, whether the research projectthat yielded the paper proceeded as initially planned and whether the main result of the focal
paper more or less significant than the initial expectations of the researchers.
The research proceeded as initially planned for 26% of the H papers and for 30% of N papers, asseen in Exhibit 17. In addition, the main result of the focal paper was as initially expected for 25%of the H papers and for 40% of the N papers. Combining them, the main result as well as theresearch process for the paper was as initially expected or planned only for 11% of the H papers
and 18% of the N papers. Put differently, most papers involved uncertainty either in outcome orin the research process and such uncertainty is significantly higher in H papers.
On the other hand, the research proceeded quite differently from that originally planned for
6.4% of the H papers and for 4.4% of N papers, as seen in Exhibit 18. The main result of the focal
paper was substantially more significant than expected for 32% of the H papers and for 14% of theN papers. Thus, unexpected good outcome, and perhaps unexpected research process to theextent that it is useful for generating unexpected good outcome, seems to contribute significantly
to generating a H paper.
There are significant differences across fields in the level of uncertainty as measured by theincidence of big surprises in the research process and the outcome. Computer science &mathematics involves least uncertainty on both accounts, presumably because most of theresearch in this field does not use experiments. A H paper involves less uncertainty in research
process than a N paper as in environment/ecology & geosciences. On the other hand, a research
project of materials science which resulted in a H paper has most often involved a large research
process uncertainty (14% of the papers). The research in physics & space science, chemistry, andbasic life sciences that resulted in H papers most often generates the results substantially moresignificant than expected.

29

Exhibit 17 Incidence of research largely the same as originally planned (%, yes)(a) Research process

8.2_Basic_Life_Sci

26%
30%
21%
23%
33%
19%
26%
28%
13%
28%
28%
33%
40%
34%
29%
32%
28%
36%
22%
31%

S_Social_Sci

45%

All_Sci
1_Chem2_Mat_Sci
3_Phy&Space_Sci
4_Com_Sci&Math
5_Eng
6_Env/Eco&Geo
7_Clin_Med&Psy/Psy
8.1_Agr_Sci&Plant&Anim_Sci

0%

10%

20%
H projects

30%

40%

50%

60%

40%

50%

60%

N projects(b) Main result of the focal paper

8.2_Basic_Life_Sci

25%
40%
23%
37%
23%
39%
18%
33%
44%
46%
34%
46%
37%
34%
36%
49%
27%
44%
12%
35%

S_Social_Sci

53%

All_Sci
1_Chem2_Mat_Sci
3_Phy&Space_Sci
4_Com_Sci&Math
5_Eng
6_Env/Eco&Geo
7_Clin_Med&Psy/Psy
8.1_Agr_Sci&Plant&Anim_Sci

0%

10%

20%
H projects

Note1:
Note2:

30%
N projects

The results show the share of ʺresearch largely the same as originally plannedʺ for research process and for the main result of the focal
paper.
Result of social sciences in the H projects was not shown due to the small number of responses.

30

Exhibit 18 Big surprises in research (%, yes)(a) Research process (totally different)

8.2_Basic_Life_Sci

6%
4%
7%
6%
14%
3%
6%
6%
0%
3%
4%
1%
3%
6%
5%
4%
8%
3%
7%
5%

S_Social_Sci

3%

All_Sci
1_Chem2_Mat_Sci
3_Phy&Space_Sci
4_Com_Sci&Math
5_Eng
6_Env/Eco&Geo
7_Clin_Med&Psy/Psy
8.1_Agr_Sci&Plant&Anim_Sci

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

H projects

25%

30%

35%

40%

45%

50%

30%

35%

40%

45%

50%

N projects(b) Main result of the focal paper (for better)

8.2_Basic_Life_Sci

32%
14%
38%
14%
28%
15%
41%
15%
6%
5%
26%
11%
30%
21%
24%
9%
27%
9%
36%
21%

S_Social_Sci

10%

All_Sci
1_Chem2_Mat_Sci
3_Phy&Space_Sci
4_Com_Sci&Math
5_Eng
6_Env/Eco&Geo
7_Clin_Med&Psy/Psy
8.1_Agr_Sci&Plant&Anim_Sci

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

H projects
Note1:
Note2:

25%

N projects

The results show the share of ʺtotally differentʺ for research process and ʺbetterʺ for the main result of the focal paper.
Result of social sciences in the H projects was not shown due to the small number of responses.

31

4－3 SERENDIPITY
One important research outcome due to uncertainty is a serendipitous discovery. Our survey
asked a researcher to identify whether the research output was serendipitous, that is, whether hefound the answers to the questions not originally posed. This definition of serendipity is based on
Stephan (2010) who emphasizes the importance of distinguishing “unexpected” from “accidental
ʺ. According to her, “True, Pasteur “discovered” bacteria while trying to solve problems thatwere confronting the French wine industry. But his discovery, although unexpected, was hardly“an accident.”The results are shown in the following Exhibit 19. More than 50% of the researchers
for both H papers and N papers answered in an affirmative manner. This high frequency is morethan our expectation. One possible explanation is that the research output of science is typicallymany, so that even if the main research output is not serendipitous, some of the byproductdiscoveries could have been serendipitous.
The frequency of serendipity is higher for the H paper (76% for the average of all sciences) thanfor the N paper (65 % for the average of all sciences). They are relatively high for the fields where
uncertainty in research output is important: basic life sciences, chemistry, materials science andphysics & space science.
Exhibit 19 Serendipity

8.2_Basic_Life_Sci

76%
65%
80%
63%
79%
64%
78%
65%
69%
61%
71%
57%
73%
72%
67%
64%
77%
64%
84%
70%

S_Social_Sci

63%

All_Sci
1_Chem2_Mat_Sci
3_Phy&Space_Sci
4_Com_Sci&Math
5_Eng
6_Env/Eco&Geo
7_Clin_Med&Psy/Psy
8.1_Agr_Sci&Plant&Anim_Sci

0%

10%

20%

30%

H projects
Note1:
Note2:

40%

50%

N projects

The results show the share of ʺyesʺ in the serendipity.
Result of social sciences in the H projects was not shown due to the small number of responses.

32

60%

70%

80%

90%

This page intentionally left blank

33

5

RESEARCH COMPETITION

Scientific research is characterized as competitive process for seeking priority by Merton (1973).
For such competitive process to work would require that a researcher recognizes competition
ex‐ante and is disciplined by that. While there are substantial numbers of anecdotal evidence forthe importance of priority competition as a motivating force for science, including the ones
described by Merton (1973) himself, the systematic evidence for this is not available. To develop
a good empirical evidence for such view, our survey asked a researcher the following questions.
(1) ʺApproximately how many major research teams did you recognize as your potential
competitors when you began the research project? Please indicate the number of potential
competitors in Japan (i.e., the competing team with its leader being located in Japan) and outsideof Japan.ʺ and (2) ʺHow strongly were you and your team members concerned about thepossibility that your competitors would have priority over your research results?ʺ
As shown in following Exhibit 20, most of the researchers could indicate the range of thenumber of domestic and international (foreign) competitors(teams), even if there were a choice ofʺunknownʺ. The percentage of the choice of ʺunknownʺ for the number of international
competitors was only 6.2% for the H projects and 13% for the N projects. Furthermore, there
were no international competitors only for 8.7% of the H projects and for 15% of the N projects.
Thus, majority of scientists face international competitors for both H and N projects (85% for H
projects and more than 70% for N projects). The numbers of international competitors areapparently larger than that of domestic competitors. Thus, (especially international) competition
exists for a great majority of the projects and it is well recognized ex‐ante. Domestic competitors
are absent for almost 40% of both H and N projects. On the other hand, there are more than 5competitors for 36% of the H projects and 25% of N projects. More competitors are recognized
ex‐ante in the H projects.
Exhibit 20 Number of competitors (competing teams) recognized ex‐ante (at the stage of project initiation)
None

1

2-5

5-10

More t han 10

Unk nown

H projects

36.2%

14.5%

36.0%

4.8%

3.0%

5.5%

N projects

37.1%

12.7%

33.8%

4.6%

1.5%

10.2%

Foreign (Outside H projectsof Japan)N projects

8.7%

6.2%

43.1%

22.4%

13.4%

6.2%

15.1%

6.5%

40.3%

16.7%

8.6%

12.8%

Japan

Note1:The result of all fields.

The following Exhibit 21 shows the frequency where 5 or more foreign competitors arerecognized ex‐ante and the incidence of strong priority concern (sum of the two strongest levels ofconcern) of a researcher by field. The number of competitors recognized by researchers is large
especially working in materials science, chemistry, and engineering, where competition might
have become more global as the other East Asia countries have also become competitive. We
saw earlier that there were no foreign competitors even for 8.7% of H projects. The incidence
that no foreign competitors exist is especially high for environment/ecology & geosciences34

according to the fourth column. In this area international collaborations for data collection areextensive and the incidence of international co‐authoring of H papers is also very high (73.3%).
Such extensive network of international collaborations might explain a relatively small number offoreign competitors recognized in this field. Another important observation we can make is thata large number of competitors are significantly more recognized for H projects than for N
projects across all fields, except for environment/ecology & geosciences and agriculture sciences.
Researchers were concerned over priority loss in 53% of the H projects and they were verymuch concerned in 18% of them. The corresponding ratios for the N projects are 31% and 6%.
Thus, we may conclude that priority competition does work, although only a half of theresearchers were concerned even in the H projects and only a minority of researchers wasconcerned in the N projects. It is interesting to see that researchers for the H projects weresignificantly more concerned over priority loss. A potential explanation is that there are morecompetitors for such projects as seen in Exhibit 20. The priority concern varies strongly acrossfields. Such concern is high in basic life sciences (in both H and N projects), materials science (inH projects), and physics & space science (in both H and N projects).

Exhibit 21 Number of foreign competitors recognized ex‐ante and concern over priority loss
% , no% , 5 or more major
f oreign c ompet it ors

Very muc h c onc ernedf oreign
c ompet it ors

ov er priorit y los sConc erned ov er priorit y
los s(inc luding " Very muc h" )H projec ts N projects H projects H projects N projec ts H projec ts N projec ts
All_Sciences

35.9%

25.3%

8.7%

17.7%

6.1%

53.2%

31.4%

1.Chemistry

47.9%

28.0%

1.4%

22.5%

4.3%

54.9%

25.3%

2.Materials Science

55.8%

34.3%

2.3%

16.3%

6.1%

60.5%

23.2%

3.Physics & Space Science

32.3%

23.3%

7.9%

22.0%

5.1%

56.7%

34.4%

4.Computer Science & Mathematics

37.5%

34.4%

0.0%

6.3%

8.2%

25.0%

29.5%

5.Engineering

42.6%

27.5%

10.3%

13.2%

2.2%

50.0%

21.0%

6.Environment/Ecology & Geosciences

20.0%

22.4%

23.3%

0.0%

4.7%

20.0%

24.7%

7.Clinical Medicine & Psychiatry/Psychology

30.3%

22.7%

16.7%

22.7%

5.6%

56.1%

28.8%

8.1Agriculture Sciences

20.0%

19.7%

11.7%

15.0%

6.8%

53.3%

34.1%

8.2 Basic life Sciences

36.1%

25.5%

6.0%

18.1%

10.3%

61.4%

43.3%

-

17.5%

-

-

0.0%

-

22.5%

S.Social
Note1:

Result of social sciences in the H projects was not shown due to the small number of responses.

35

6

KNOWLEDGE SOURCES AND RESEARCH MANAGEMENT

6－1 EXTERNAL KNOWLEDGE SOURCES THAT INSPIRED THE RESEARCH PROJECT
Since scientific research is a cumulative process, building on the existing stock of knowledge
that is embodied in literature, experts and facilities, the scope and depth of exploiting suchknowledge would affect significantly the efficiency of scientific research. It may depend on theabsorptive capability of the research team as well as its management. While absorptive capability
is most often used to characterize the innovation capability of industrial firms (see Cohen andLevinthal (1989)), such capability may well become relevant to the scientific research that has
become more complex. Our survey identified 5 broad categories of knowledge sources based on
pre‐testing (one category having overlaps with the other categories): literature (open to the public
and widely accessible), forums and facilities (open but less accessible for a distant researcher),internal or past collaborators (based on personal contacts within collaborative relationship),external experts (based on personal contacts) and experts in a different field or with a different
skill (which have overlaps with the other categories). There are 15 subclasses of knowledge
sources and a respondent was invited to evaluate each of them in terms of whether it was used or
not and, when used, how important it was for suggesting the project by 5 point Likert scale.
The most important knowledge source is scientific literature, as shown in following Exhibit
22(a). Almost 50% of the researchers of both H and N projects say that they are very important.
Scientific literature with faster disclosures (preprints, etc. ), colleagues in the organization (auniversity, a laboratory, etc.), conferences, workshops etc., visiting researchers or post‐doctoral
students in the organization and past research collaborators follow this, exceeding 10% for each of
H and N projects. In addition to them, availability of new facilities and equipments forexperiments and researchers in different academic fields are important for more than 10% of the H
projects.
The importance attached by the researchers of H projects tends to be higher for most knowledge
sources (except for patent literature and handbooks and textbooks). The difference of theincidence between these two types of projects are especially large (more than 5% points) forconferences, workshops etc., visiting researchers or post‐doctoral students in the organization,scientific literature with faster disclosures, and colleagues in the organization (a university, alaboratory, etc.). These differences suggest that faster access to the outputs of ongoing research aswell as person‐to‐person contact is especially important for getting an idea for initiating a good
research project.
The survey also asked the researchers to identify the country location of the knowledge source(such as the location of the key researcher), when they are ʺimportantʺ or ʺvery importantʺ forsuggesting the research projects 1 . As shown in the following Exhibit 22(b), the sources ofknowledge that are embodied in researchers and the facilities tend to be domestic. Among
relatively important knowledge sources for suggesting the research project, colleagues in theorganization (a university, a laboratory, etc.), visiting researchers or post‐doctoral students in theorganization, past research collaborators and availability of new experiment facilities and1

The countries for a choice are Japan, the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and the other EU
member countries, China and others.

36equipments are often domestic. On the other hand, the sources of knowledge that are embodied
in literature and open forum are very often international. They include scientific literature withfaster disclosures, scientific literature, and competitors. Since research competition is global (seesection 5), it is not surprising that competitors as important knowledge source are also often
international.

37

Exhibit 22 External knowledge sources used in the research projects(a) Importance of various knowledge sources for suggesting the research project (% , very important)

Literature(a) Scientific literature(b) Scientific literature with faster disclosures ( Preprints, etc. )(c) Handbooks and textbooks(d) Patent literature

Forums andfacilities(e) Conferences, workshops etc.
(f) Unofficial information (those from mailing lists, etc.)(g) Availability of new experiment facilities and equipments

Experts inadifferent
field orwith aInternal ordifferent External
past
skill
experts collaborators(h) New database (genome, materials, etc.)(i) Colleagues in the organization (a university, a laboratory, etc.)(j) Visiting researchers or post‐doctoral students in the organization(k) Past research collaborators(l) Competitors(m) Partners in industrial ‐ academic ‐ government alliance(n) Researchers in different academic fields(o) Researchers with different research skills

49%
46%
21%
14%
6%
6%
1%
2%
23%
15%
7%
4%
13%
9%
8%
5%
27%
21%
19%
11%
14%
12%
9%
4%
8%
5%
7%
6%
13%
8%
0%

Note1:
Note2:

H projects
5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

N projects
40%

45%

50%

The results show the share of ʺvery importantʺ in the importance of knowledge sources for suggesting the research project
The result of all fields.

(b) How important Japan is as knowledge sources for a Japanese science research (%, in the cases where eachknowledge source is important or very important)
85%
92%
68%
81%
(n) Researchers in different academic fields 67%
70%(g) Availability of new experiment facilities and equipments 62%73%(k) Past research collaborators 62%65%(j) Visiting researchers or post‐doctoral students in the organization 61%
65%(o) Researchers with different research skills (experimental researchers for… 60%71%(d) Patent literature 56%61%(c) Handbooks and textbooks 44%43%(f) Unofficial information (those from mailing lists, etc.) 31%
40%(e) Conferences, workshops, and academic meetings 27%40%(h) New database (genome, materials, etc.) 21%34%(l) Competitors 14%21%(a) Scientific literature (Articles in journals, etc.) 12%
17%(b) Scientific literature (Preprints, information on websites, those with faster… 11%12%(m) Partners in industrial ‐ academic ‐ government alliance(i) Colleagues in the organization (a university, a laboratory, etc.)0%
H projects

Note1:
Note2:

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

N projects

The share of responses identifying Japan is the most important knowledge source. The countries for a choice are Japan, the United States,
Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and the other EU member countries, China and others
The result of all fields.

38

100%

6－2 RESEARCH MANAGEMENT AND ITS POTENTIAL CONTRIBUTIONSAs pointed out earlier, most scientific researches today are teamwork. It also builds on thecollaborations across organizations and across disciplines (See next section). It also faces, perhaps
increasingly more, global priority competition. Therefore, we would expect that management has
become increasingly important for research performance. In order to have empirical basis forevaluating the relevancy of management for scientific research, our survey asked whatmanagement practices each research team has adopted (we identified major 16 practices based on
pre‐testing, excluding ʺthe otherʺ) and, when it is used, how effective they have been. These 16
practices cover 6 broad categories: goal setting, research team formation, information sharing,accumulation of research output, efficiency of research, and interaction with research community.
Following Exhibit 23(a) summarizes how often each research management practice isimplemented (%, yes). Information sharing and research assessment through presentations inacademic conferences are implemented for more than 90% of both H and N projects. This isconsistent with the result in the last section where we saw that conference and workshops were
often a very important knowledge source. Following this, a setting of an ambitious research
project goal, a setting of research project goals consistent with the directions of science, making
flexible changes to research goals reflecting the progress of the research project, information
sharing within the research team through meetings, individual discussions between a researchmember and a research leader, archiving the research process in laboratory and experimental
notes, continuous improvement of experiment facilities owned by the research team are
implemented in more than 50% of both H and N projects. In addition, a formation of a researchteam with diverse research skills, such as theory and experiment and a participation of young
scholars are implemented in 50% or more of the H projects.
Although the pattern of implementation across management practices are similar between H
projects and N projects, all management practices, except for a setting of research project goalsconsistent with the directions of social development, are implemented more in H projects. What
are interesting would be the practices that are implemented in a different degree between two
types of projects. The management practice with the largest difference in implementation is aparticipation of young scholars, such as post‐docs. It is implemented in 64% of the H projects but
in 46% of the N projects, with 17% points’ difference. All management practices related toresearch team formation, in addition to the participation of young scholars, have substantial
differences in implementation, exceeding 10%. Thus, one key difference is the formation of a
research team with young scholars and diversity. The other two practices for goal settings(ambitious research project goal and research project goals consistent with the directions ofscience) have also substantial difference in implementation that amounts to more than 10% points
in favor of the H projects. This seems to suggest that the H projects are more consciously
managed, taking into accounts the research environment and opportunities. Finally, theresearchers in the H projects are more involved in the development of a research community forcultivating a new research field. The conscious effort of a researcher to develop a researchcommunity could help enhancing the research performance of his own by strengthening the scaleof network externality among researchers.
The next question is how effectively each management practice contributed to the main outputof the research project. Exhibit 23(b) summarizes the results for the frequency at which each39management practice is regarded to be very effective. The effectiveness was evaluated by 5 point
Likert scale (from ʺnot effective at allʺ to ʺvery effectiveʺ). A formation of a research team fromdiverse academic fields, a participation of young scholars, information sharing within the researchteam through meetings, information sharing within the research team through meetings,
individual discussions between a research member and a research leader are regarded to very
effective in more than 40% of both H and N projects. All management practices, except forarchiving the research process in laboratory and experimental notes, are regarded to be very
effective more often by the researchers who participated in the H projects. This common pattern of
the higher scores on management practices by H projects may substantially reflect the fact that the
H projects were successful projects. However, an interesting finding is that the difference in theeffectiveness across these two projects types is very large especially for the practices related to thegoal setting as well as a formation of a research team with diverse research skills, and information
sharing within the research team through meetings. These suggest again that H projects are more
consciously managed, taking into accounts the research environment and opportunities.

40

Exhibit 23 Implementation of research management practices (%, yes)Interacti
accumula
on withresearchtion of Informati Researchcommuni Efficiency of researchteamonoutput sharing formationty
research

Setting of goals(a) Implementation of research management practices (%, yes)
70%58%(b) Setting of research project goals consistent with the directions of science 79%
67%(c) Setting of research project goals consistent with the directions of social … 44%45%(d) Making flexible changes to goals reflecting the progress of the research project 81%
76%(e) Research team with diverse research skills, such as theory and experiment 50%
37%(f) Research team from diverse academic fields 36%
25%(g) Participation of young scholars, such as post‐docs 64%46%(h) Information sharing within the research team through meetings 82%
77%(i) Individual discussions between a research member and a research leader 81%
73%(j) Archiving the research process in laboratory and experimental notes 82%80%(k) Accumulation of research output in a data base 50%45%(l) Division of research works, including outsourcing 34%25%(m) Continuous improvement of experiment facilities owned by the research team 68%
61%(n) Improvement of computing or simulation programs 39%34%(o) Information sharing and research assessment by attending conferences 91%
91%(p) Development of a research community for cultivating a new research field 41%27%(a) Setting of ambitious research project goal

0%

10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

H projects

Note1:
Note2:

N projects

This is based on a Yes or No question on the implementation of a particular management practice.
The result of all fields.

(a) Setting of ambitious research project goal(b) Setting of research project goals consistent with the directions of science(c) Setting of research project goals consistent with the directions of social development(e) Research team with diverse research skills, such as theory and experiment(l) Division of research works, including outsourcing

Interaction
withresearch
community

accumulati
on ofresearch Informatio Research team
output n sharing
formation(d) Making flexible changes to goals reflecting the progress of the research project

Efficiency of
research

Setting of goals(b) Effectiveness of research management practices to the main output of the research project (%, very effective)(f) Research team from diverse academic fields(g) Participation of young scholars, such as post‐docs(h) Information sharing within the research team through meetings(i) Individual discussions between a research member and a research leader(j) Archiving the research process in laboratory and experimental notes(k) Accumulation of research output in a data base(m) Continuous improvement of experiment facilities owned by the research team(n) Improvement of computing or simulation programs(o) Information sharing and research assessment by attending conferences(p) Development of a research community for cultivating a new research field

45%
30%
36%
25%
36%
25%
42%
29%
51%
38%
48%
42%
54%
47%
53%
40%
49%
41%
38%
39%
33%
28%
34%
26%
33%
27%
41%
39%
39%
34%
37%
30%
0%

10%

H projects

Note1:
Note2:

Based on 5 point Likert scale response on the effectiveness of management practices.
The result of all fields.

41

20%
N projects

30%

40%

50%

60%

Small ← Difference in effectiveness → Large

Exhibit 24 Implementation and effectiveness of research management practice (H projects ‐ N projects, %)(a) Setting of ambitious research project goal(b) Setting of research project goals consistent with the(c) Setting of research project goals consistent with thedirections of science
directions of social development(e) Research team with diverse research skills, such as(d) Making flexible changes to goals reflecting the progress oftheory and experiment
the research project(i) Individual discussions between a research member and a(h) Information sharing within the research team throughresearch leader
meetings(p) Development of a research community for cultivating a
new research field(j) Archiving the research process in laboratory andexperimental notes(k) Accumulation of research output in a data base(m) Continuous improvement of experiment facilities ownedby the research team(n) Improvement of computing or simulation programs(o) Information sharing and research assessment throughpresentations in academic conferences

Low ←Note1:
Note2:(f) Research team from diverse academic fields(g) Participation of young scholars, such as post-docs(l) Division of research works, including outsourcing, forefficient and expedited research

Difference in implementation →High

Based on the difference of the means of the H projects and N projects.
“High” and “Low” evaluation of the implementation of each practice along horizontal axis is based on the difference in theimplementation rate of such practice from the overall average. “Large” and “Small” evaluation of the effectiveness of each practice isbased on the “very effective” share of each practice from its mean.

Exhibit 24 classifies the management practices into 4 quadrants, based on whether they are
relatively more used in the H projects than in the N projects as well as on whether they areperceived to be very effective relatively more often in the H projects than in N projects. The
vertical axis measures the difference across two project types of the frequency of each practiceperceived to be very effective and the horizontal axis measures the difference of the incidence of
implementation of a management practice across two project types. Since the level of
implementation of a management practice will be high if it is more effective, we can interpret thatthe upper right quadrant identifies the group of the management practices for which such effects
are dominant (that is, they are more effective in H projects and therefore more implemented in H
projects). Even if the effectiveness of a management practice may not differ, such management
practice may be implemented more in H projects if the cost or the capability of its implementation
is low in such projects. The lower right hand quadrant identifies the group of the management
practices for which such effect is strong (that is, while they are not perceived to be effective more
often in H projects but implemented more in H projects, due to lower marginal cost of suchmanagement practices in H projects than in N projects). Similarly, the left upper quadrant
identifies the group of the management practices which were more effective in H projects but
implemented relatively less in H projects, indicating perhaps significantly higher marginal cost of
implementing such practice in H projects than in N projects.
The upper right‐hand quadrant (both the difference of the level of implementation and thedifference of the effectiveness is larger in favor of H projects) include a setting of an ambitious
research project goal, setting of research project goals consistent with the directions of science, a42formation of a research team with diverse research skills, individual discussions between a
research member and a research leader, and the development of a research community forcultivating a new research field. They are the management practices most discriminating H
projects from N projects, although further work is necessary to identify the causality between
these management practices and research performance.
The lower right‐hand quadrant (the difference of the level of implementation is large but thedifference of the effectiveness in favor of H projects is small) include a formation of a researchteam from diverse academic fields, participation of young scholars, such as post‐docs, and adivision of research works, including outsourcing, for efficient and expedited research. Such
practices may be more used in H projects due to lower marginal cost of using them, perhaps due
to a larger research budget and more institutional support specific to the H projects. The upper
left‐hand quadrant (the difference of the level of implementation is small but the difference of theeffectiveness is large) include a setting of research project goals consistent with the directions ofsocial development, making flexible changes to goals reflecting the progress of the research
project and information sharing within the research team through meetings. The latter two
management practices are extensively implemented (close to 80% in both types of projects), so thatthe room for further expanding their use may be very limited (high marginal cost).

43

6－3 USE OF ADVANCED RESEARCH FACILITIES, DATABASES, AND THE INTERNET FOR DISTANTCOLLABORATORS
Research equipment and database plays a very important role for scientific research (Stephan(2010)). For examples, the inventions and the progress of a particle accelerator, a scanningtunneling microscope, and a DNA sequencer have been major sources for advancing research inphysics, materials science and life science. In addition, the availability of internet has fosteredcollaborative research among distant researchers and its productivity (see Agrawal and Goldfarb(2008)). Our survey asked researchers whether they used advanced research facilities, anddatabases as well as whether there were the participation of remote researchers using the internet,
and when they do, how effective they were in producing the main research output. As foradvanced research facilities, we differentiated between those owned by a research team and theexternal facilities. We also differentiated research material databases such as genomes, materials,
and those for journal/published papers.
Exhibit 25 shows the summary results for the level of the use of these infrastructures as well as
their effectiveness to the main output of the research. Databases of journal/published papers aremost frequently (more than 80%) used in both H projects and N projects. All facilities anddatabases are more used in H projects. The differences are especially large for the use of advanced
research equipment and facilities owned by the research team and the participation of remoteresearchers using the Internet.
51% of the H projects (37% of the N projects) use advanced research equipment and facilities
owned by the research team and 23% of the H projects (14% of the N projects) use the external
advanced research equipment and facilities. While the external advanced research equipment
and facilities are less used than the owed equipments and facilities, when used, they were foundto be equally or more very effective than the owned equipment and facilities (that is, very effective
in more than 60% of the cases) in both H projects and N projects. Thus, research equipment andfacilities play a very important role. Internet is also extensively used for facilitating theparticipation of remote researchers (36% of the H projects and 25% of the N projects) and found tobe very effective for 39% of the H projects and 33% of the N projects. The database, bothliterature and research materials, were also found to be very effective when used, for more than
one third of both H and N projects.

44

Exhibit 25 Use (a) and effectiveness (b) of advanced research facilities, databases, and the internet for distantcollaborators(a)(a) Advanced research equipment and facilities (owned by your research team)

51%
37%

(b) Advanced external experimental equipment and facilities (such as accelerator,
super computer, observatory, etc.)

23%
14%

(c) The latest databases (genomes, materials, etc.), other than those forjournal/published papers

22%
15%

(d) Databases of journal/published papers

82%
80%

(e) Access to the latest foreign and domestic research information (information
available before it is published in journals)

53%
44%

(f) Participation of remote researchers [1] using the internet

36%
25%

0%
H projects

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90% 100%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90% 100%

N projects(b)(a) Advanced research equipment and facilities (owned by your research team)

63%
49%

(b) Advanced external experimental equipment and facilities (such as accelerator,
super computer, observatory, etc.)

64%
62%

(c) The latest databases (genomes, materials, etc.), other than those forjournal/published papers

39%
35%

(d) Databases of journal/published papers

39%
37%

(e) Access to the latest foreign and domestic research information (information
available before it is published in journals)

39%
33%

(f) Participation of remote researchers [1] using the internet

51%
46%

0%
H projects

Note1:
Note2:

10%

N projects(a)This is based on a Yes or No question on the implementation of a particular management practice. (b) Based on 5 point Likert scale
response on the effectiveness of management practices.
The result of all fields.

45

7

RESEARCH TEAMS AS SEEN FROM AUTHORS

The recent studies on the scientific research, based on the bibliographic information,1 showthat a unit of scientific research has increasingly shifted from an individual to a team, involving
multiple organizations rather than a single organization, which is also an international rather
than domestic. The recent research on science mapping2 also suggests that interdisciplinary or
cross‐cutting research areas, which require combination of knowledge from different fields,
have emerged broadly in science.
These developments suggest that the issue of how to design and manage a research team has
become an increasingly important issue. However, the bibliographic information alone provides
only limited information on who are the researchers, including their status, the role in research,disciplinary diversity and skill diversity. Furthermore, it is important to note that a significant
number of researchers are not listed as authors, while those who contributed only research fundand materials are listed as authors, as will be shown in this section.
This survey asked a respondent to identify the authors’ organizational affiliations,academic/professional positions in the organization, academic areas, areas of expertise, and thecountries of birth to identify the structure of research team. This question on author profile was
asked for all authors when the number of them is 6 or less and to the first, last and corresponding
authors and the randomly selected authors when it is 7 or more. This question was also asked to
the responding author, when it was not included. Furthermore, our survey also clarified thenumbers of collaborating researchers, students and technicians who are not included in theauthors list.

1

See Jones Wuchy and Uzzi (2008), and Saka and Kuwahara (2008)

2 See Saka, Igami and Kuwahara (2010)46

7－1 NUMBER OF AUTHORSThe share of single authored papers is 3% for the H papers and 6.9% for the N papers. This
indicates that most scientific research is done by a team rather than by an individual in our
sample too. The median and average number of authors is 6 and 10 persons respectively for the H
projects and 4 and 5 persons respectively for N projects, as shown in the following exhibit. Thus,
the size distribution of authors is skewed especially in the H projects.
(Number of authors by field)
The boxplots in Exhibit 26 shows the distributions of the number of authors by field. Red
boxplots indicate the distributions for the H papers; and blue ones for the N papers. Left ends ofboxes indicate the first quartiles; and right ends of boxes the third quartiles. Left ends ofwhiskers indicate the 5th percentile; and right ends of whiskers the 95th percentile. The red bands
in bars indicate the medians; and rhombi in bars the means. The bars display the range (25% to75%) of the distribution of authors on a paper by type of the focal paper and by field.
Exhibit 26 Distributions of number of authors by field

All_Sci

566
1,513

1_Chem

71
186

1
1

3.0
3.0

4.0
4.0

7.0
5.0

20
13

5.3
4.2

2_Mat_Sci

43
99

1
1

3.0
3.0

4.0
4.0

6.0
5.0

13
10

4.7
4.1

3_Phy&Space_Sci

127
253

1
1

3.0
2.0

5.0
4.0

7.5
5.0

327
209

19.1
6.4

4_Com_Sci&Math

16
61

1
1

2.0
1.0

2.5
2.0

4.3
3.0

6
8

3.1
2.4

5_Eng

68
138

1
1

3.0
2.0

4.0
3.0

6.0
4.0

21
18

5.1
3.8

6_Env/Eco&Geo

30
85

1
1

3.3
2.0

6.5
4.0

15.5
5.0

50
33

11.5
4.0

7_Clin_Med&Psy/Psy

66
198

1
1

7.0
4.0

9.0
6.0

14.0
8.0

46
31

11.1
6.1

8.1_Agr_Sci&Plant&Anim_Sci

60
132

1
1

4.8
3.0

6.0
4.0

9.0
6.0

23
12

6.8
4.4

83
321

1
1

5.0
4.0

8.0
5.0

12.0
7.0

34
18

9.4
5.8

40

1

1.8

3.0

3.0

8

3.0

8.2_Basic_Life_Sci
MedianS_Social_Sci

Average0

Note1:

Note2:

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

Q1
3.0
3.0

Median6.0
4.0

unit: authors
Maximum Average
Q3
9.0
327
10.0
6.0
209
5.0

Minimum
1
1

Respondents

18 20 authors

Red boxplots indicate the distributions for the H projects; and blue ones for the N projects. Left end of boxes indicate the first quartiles;
and right end of boxes the third quartiles. Left end of whiskers indicate the 5th percentile; and right end of whiskers the 95th percentile.
The red bands in bars indicate the medians; and rhombi in bars the means.
Result of social sciences in the H projects was not shown due to the small number of responses.

The number of authors varies significantly across scientific fields. Since the number of authors
varies significantly even in a specific scientific field, we use mainly the medians for the following
comparison across fields. The size of authors is small in computer science & mathematics andsocial sciences, while it is large in basic life sciences and clinical medicine &psychiatry/psychology. The range of the author size between the first and the third quartile forphysics & space science is not especially large, but the gap between the median and the average isvery large. This reflects the existence of the papers with a huge number of authors (more than300) on such subject as particle physics.
The number of authors tends to be larger for H papers than N papers in most fields. The
medians are strictly larger in all fields except for chemistry and materials science, and the means
are larger in all fields. The variation of the number of authors is large in environment/ecology &47

geosciences, clinical medicine & psychiatry/psychology, and basic life sciences. In these fields, themaximum size of the research team is also very large, following physics & space science.
(Number of authors by sector)
Exhibit 27 shows distributions of number of authors by sector. The median of the number ofauthors hardly differs between sectors. It is larger in the H papers than that in the N papers
across all sectors. It is interesting to note that the maximum size of the authors reaches several
hundred in higher educational institutions and PRIs, while it amounts to only a few dozens inprivate firms.

Exhibit 27 Distributions of number of authors by sector

All_sectors

566
1,515

HEIs

399
1,181

1
1

3.0
3.0

6.0
4.0

9.0
6.0

250
183

9.0
4.8

117
219

1
1

4.0
3.0

5.0
4.0

9.0
6.0

327
209

11.6
6.1

41
86

1
1

4.0
2.0

5.0
4.0

8.0
6.0

26
18

6.6
4.7

PRIs
MedianPrivate_firms

Average0

Note1:

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

Q1
3.0
3.0

Median6.0
4.0

unit: authors
Maximum Average
Q3
9.0
327
10.0
6.0
209
5.0

Minimum
1
1

Respondents

18 20 authors

Red boxplots indicate the distributions for the H projects; and blue ones for the N projects. Left end of boxes indicate the first quartiles;
and right end of boxes the third quartiles. Left end of whiskers indicate the 5th percentile; and right end of whiskers the 95th percentile.
The red bands in bars indicate the medians; and rhombi in bars the means.

7－2 NUMBER OF COLLABORATING RESEARCHERS, STUDENTS AND TECHNICIANS, WHO ARE NOTCOAUTHORS ON THE PAPER(Number of collaborating researchers, students and technicians, who are not coauthors by field)
The sum of the numbers of collaborating researchers, students and technicians, who are notcoauthors, are shown in Exhibit 28. Similar to the number of authors, there exist big research
projects with more than 100 non‐author researchers so that its distribution is skewed. Thus, we
focus on the medians.
The median size of non‐author research team members is 2 persons for both H papers and N
papers. Since the median size of authors is 6 for H papers and 4 for N papers, we can conclude
that non‐author research members are important. The median size of non‐author research teammembers is large in three life science related fields, environment/ecology & geosciences, materials
science and engineering, compared to computer science & mathematics, chemistry, physics &space science and social sciences (clinical medicine & psychiatry/psychology, clinical medicine &psychiatry/psychology and agricultural sciences & plant & animal science). Comparison of H
papers and N papers suggest that H papers have more such non‐author research team members
in computer science & mathematics, engineering, environment/ecology & geosciences, clinicalmedicine & psychiatry/psychology, and basic life sciences.

48

Exhibit 28 Number of collaborating researchers, students and technicians, who are not coauthors on the paper by
field

All_Sci549
1,482

1_Chem

69
181

0
0

0.0
0.0

1.0
1.0

3.0
4.0

163
30

9.5
2.7

2_Mat_Sci

42
96

0
0

0.3
0.0

2.0
2.0

5.8
4.0

60
19

5.2
2.8

3_Phy&Space_Sci

123
249

0
0

0.0
0.0

1.0
1.0

4.0
3.0

300
50

7.1
2.9

4_Com_Sci&Math

16
61

0
0

0.0
0.0

0.5
0.0

2.0
3.0

5
30

1.4
2.7

5_Eng

64
135

0
0

0.8
0.0

3.0
2.0

6.0
5.0

142
100

6.9
6.0

6_Env/Eco&Geo

30
82

0
0

1.0
1.0

4.5
3.0

20.0
7.5

90
600

17.6
12.8

7_Clin_Med&Psy/Psy

64
194

0
0

0.0
0.0

3.0
2.0

8.0
5.0

250
31

13.4
3.5

8.1_Agr_Sci&Plant&Anim_Sci

59
130

0
0

1.0
0.0

2.0
2.0

4.0
5.0

45
52

4.0
3.9

81
316

0
0

1.0
0.0

3.0
1.5

5.0
4.0

162
85

6.7
3.5

38

0

0.0

1.0

3.0

12

2.0

8.2_Basic_Life_Sci
MedianS_Social_Sci

Average0

Note1:

Note2:
Note3:

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

Q1
0.0
0.0

Median2.0
2.0

unit: person
Maximum Average
Q3
5.0
300
8.0
4.0
600
3.9

Minimum
00

Respondents

10 persons

Red boxplots indicate the distributions for the H projects; and blue ones for the N projects. Left end of boxes indicate the first quartiles;
and right end of boxes the third quartiles. Left end of whiskers indicate the 5th percentile; and right end of whiskers the 95th percentile.
The red bands in bars indicate the medians; and rhombi in bars the means.
Result of social sciences in the H projects was not shown due to the small number of responses.
Result shows the summation of the number of collaborating researchers, students and technicians.

(Number of non‐author research team members by sector)
Number of non‐author research team members by sector is shown in Exhibit 29. The
distributions are similar, except for that the median value of such members is larger in H papers
than in N papers, when the paper is from higher educational institutions.
Exhibit 29 Number of collaborating researchers, students and technicians, who are not coauthors on the paper bysectorAll_sectors

549
1,484

HEIs

387
1,161

0
0

0.0
0.0

2.0
1.0

5.0
4.0

300
600

8.5
4.1

PRIs

113
211

0
0

0.0
0.0

2.0
2.0

5.0
5.0

162
41

5.8
3.5

40
84

0
0

0.8
0.0

2.0
2.0

4.5
4.0

60
40

4.7
3.8

MedianPrivate_firms

Average0

Note1:

Note2:

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

Q1
0.0
0.0

Median2.0
2.0

unit: person
Maximum Average
Q3
5.0
300
8.0
4.0
600
3.9

Minimum
00

Respondents

10 persons

Red boxplots indicate the distributions for the H projects; and blue ones for the N projects. Left end of boxes indicate the first quartiles;
and right end of boxes the third quartiles. Left end of whiskers indicate the 5th percentile; and right end of whiskers the 95th percentile.
The red bands in bars indicate the medians; and rhombi in bars the means.
Result shows the summation of the number of collaborating researchers, students and technicians.

49

7－3 SCOPE OF AUTHORS: WHO ARE THE AUTHORS?
The basic question we asked in our survey is who are included among the authors, beyond
those who directly contributed to the research project such as those who engaged in experiments,
observations and theoretical analysis. We asked a respondent whether there are those authors
who did only non‐research works such as providing research materials in the project under thesurvey.
A large number of researchers who supplied only research materials are included as an author
in both H papers (25％) and N papers (17％). In addition, a researcher who supplied ordeveloped only the research facilities or equipments is also frequently included as an author inboth types of papers (17% in H papers and 13% in N papers). Frequent inclusion of theseresearchers among the authors might have been important to provide them the incentives toprovide such materials and equipments. It also indicates their importance in research.
It is also noteworthy that a researcher who provided only research fund is also included as an
author relatively frequently (8.7% in H papers and 6.5% in N papers).
Exhibit 30 Incidence of authors who did not contribute directly to the research(a) Any researcher who only supplied research materials analyzed in the research

25%
17%

(b) Any researcher who only supplied or developed the research facilities or
equipments used in the research17%(c) Any researcher who only supplied or developed the computer program or
database used in the research

10%(d) Any researcher who only supplied funds used in the research(e) Other

13%

6%

9%
7%

6%
6%

0%
H projects

Note1:
Note2:
Note3:

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

N projects

The choice is non‐exclusive.
Others are those researchers who did not provide direct contribution to the research project nor any four of the listed contributions
The result of all fields.

50

7－4 COMBINATION OF AUTHORS IN ACADEMIC/PROFESSIONAL POSITION
The following analysis is limited to the samples of the focal papers written by six or less authors,
so as to avoid the possible biases due to our selective sampling of the first, last and corresponding
authors of the focal papers which would become important as the number of author increase toseven or more.
Exhibit 31 shows the compositions of the authors classified by academic/professional position
by sector and by types of papers. Each paper has an equal weight for aggregating the incidence.
For example, in the case of a paper consisting of n authors, each author is given a weight of 1/n forthe purpose of aggregation.
In the HEIs, the share of professors is the largest, followed by associate professor and assistantprofessors. Professors account for around 40% in the H and N papers. On the other hand, juniorresearchers, who are undergraduates or graduate students or postdoctoral fellows, account for
28% of the authors of H papers and 25% of the N papers. Students alone account for close to 20%of the authors of both types of papers.
In PRIs, the share of the professor level scientists is the largest, followed by associate professor
level research scientists. Junior researchers account for 15% of the authors of H papers and 17% of
N papers. The share of students is small.
In private firms, the share of the junior researchers accounts for 14% in the H papers, which
however is due to the fact that a research paper collaboratively done with universities and/or
PRIs are included as the papers of the private firms1. This effect seems to be especially importantfor H papers. 13% of the authors of N papers are ʺothersʺ, half of which are technicians.

1

The paper is assigned to the sector with which the responding author is affiliated.

51

Exhibit 31 Compositions of authors in academic/professional position (a paper basis, by sector)(a) Higher education institutions
M.A. and/or undergraduate student

7.7%
H papers

10.9%

12.7%

16.8%

40.5%

2.5%

8.9%

Ph.D. student
Postdoctoral fellow
Assistant Professor level (Assistant professor, assistant,lecturer, etc. [excluding postdoctoral fellow])

10.1%
N papers

9.3%

14.4%

17.3%

38.9%

4.1%

5.9%

Associate Professor level (Associate professor, associateresearch scientists, etc.)
Professor level (Professor, senior research scientists, etc.)
Other

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

(b) Public research institutions
M.A. and/or undergraduate student

0.3%
H papers 2.0%

15.7%

22.5%

42.9%

4.1%

12.6%

Ph.D. student
Postdoctoral fellow
Assistant Professor level (Assistant professor, assistant,lecturer, etc. [excluding postdoctoral fellow])

2.5%
N papers 2.1%

14.0%

26.1%

37.6%

5.1%

12.6%

Associate Professor level (Associate professor, associateresearch scientists, etc.)
Professor level (Professor, senior research scientists, etc.)
Other

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

(c) Private firms
M.A. and/or undergraduate student

0.0%
H papers 7.8%

17.2%

29.4%

34.9%

4.0%

6.7%

Ph.D. student
Postdoctoral fellow
Assistant Professor level (Assistant professor, assistant,lecturer, etc. [excluding postdoctoral fellow])

1.2%
N papers 1.8%

20.2%

21.9%

40.0%

13.0%

1.9%

Associate Professor level (Associate professor, associateresearch scientists, etc.)
Professor level (Professor, senior research scientists, etc.)
Other

0%

Note1:
Note2:
Note3:

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

These exhibits cover only papers with 6 or less authors (1,528)
Each author of the paper with n authors has a weight of 1/n for aggregation
ʺOtherʺ includes technician, the others and unknown.

52

100%

7－5 WHO ARE THE FIRST AUTHORS WHEN THE AUTHORS ARE LISTED IN ORDER OF THEIR DEGREE OF
CONTRIBUTIONS
Exhibit 32 (a) shows who are the first authors in the focal papers whose authors are listed inorder of their degrees of contributions. It shows the shares by academic/professional position. It
indicates the types of researchers who made the most contributions to the focal papers. Stephan(2010)1 pointed out that Ph.D. students and postdoctoral fellows appear disproportionately moreas the first authors in US articles in the journal Science. We extend her analysis by covering alljournals and by focusing on the articles where the order of the authors is according to theircontributions.
In the HEIs, Ph.D. students and postdoctoral fellows made more contributions to the focal
papers as the first authors than their shares in all authors of the papers. As shown in Exhibit 32(b), the combined share of Ph.D. students and postdoctoral fellows as first authors are 1.8 times
higher than those in all authors. Their share was 37% as the first author while it was 20% of all
authors in the H papers and 29% as the first author and 15% of all authors in the N papers. In
particular, in the H papers, the share of postdoctoral fellows as first authors is close to that ofprofessors. On the other hand, in the N papers, the share of postdoctoral fellows declines (from20% down to 9.3%) while that of Ph.D student increases somewhat from 16% to 19%. This
indicates that postdoctoral fellows are especially likely to be involved to produce H papers.
The shares of Ph.D. students and postdoctoral fellows as first authors vary across scientificfields. They made large contributions, especially in life sciences. The combined share amounts to
50% of the H papers and 39% of the N papers in life sciences.

Exhibit 32 Academic/professional positions of the first authors in the focal papers whose authors are listed inorder of their degree of contributions (by sector)(a) Higher education institutions
M.A. and/or undergraduate student

2.6%
H papers

Ph.D. student

17.9%

16.4%

19.3%

21.5% 2.2%

20.1%

Postdoctoral fellow
Assistant Professor level (Assistant professor, assistant,lecturer, etc. [excluding postdoctoral fellow])

5.7%
N papers

20.7%

19.3%

20.3%

22.3% 2.3%

9.3%

0%

10%

20%

30%

Associate Professor level (Associate professor, associateresearch scientists, etc.)
Professor level (Professor, senior research scientists,
etc.)

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Other

(b) Participation of Ph. D. Studcents and posdoctoral fellow as authors
All Authors
Ph.D. s tudent

Pos tdoc toral
fellow

H papers

10.9%

8.9%

N papers

9.3%

5.9%

Firs t Author
Ph.D. student

Pos tdoc toral
fellow

19.8%

16.4%

20.1%

36.5%

15.2%

19.3%

9.3%

28.6%

Total

1

Total

Based on her seminar presentation on Economics of Science at the Research Institute of Economy, Trade andIndustry (March 2010).

53

(c) Higher education institutions (physical sciences)

3.2%
H papers

15.2%

18.4%

22.2%

25.3%

(d) Higher education (life sciences)

1.5%

1.3%

H papers

18.2%

18.2%

14.6%

31.8%

7.1%
N papers

15.1%

16.5%

21.4%

29.2%

6.7%

2.0%

N papers

27.4%

8.7%

0%

20%

3.0%
16.7% 10.6%

21.5%

18.9%

1.9%
12.6%

60%

80%

100%

11.1%

40%

60%

80%

100%

0%

20%

40%

(e) Public research institutions
M.A. and/or undergraduate student

0.0%
H papers 3.8%

Ph.D. student

24.1%

30.4%

15.2%

6.3%

20.3%

Postdoctoral fellow
Assistant Professor level (Assistant professor, assistant,lecturer, etc. [excluding postdoctoral fellow])0.0%
N papers 1.6%

19.7%

26.8%

25.7%

2.7%

23.5%

0%

10%

Associate Professor level (Associate professor, associateresearch scientists, etc.)
Professor level (Professor, senior research scientists,
etc.)

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Other

(f) Private firms
M.A. and/or undergraduate student

0.0%
H papers0.0%

Ph.D. student

21.2%

45.5%

18.2%

0.0%

15.2%

Assistant Professor level (Assistant professor, assistant,lecturer, etc. [excluding postdoctoral fellow])0.0%
N papers 1.6%
4.7%

0%

Note1:
Note2:

Postdoctoral fellow

21.9%

35.9%

21.9%

14.1%

Associate Professor level (Associate professor, associateresearch scientists, etc.)
Professor level (Professor, senior research scientists,
etc.)

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Other

The sample focuses on those papers the authors of which are ordered according to the contribution of the authors to the research (the total
sample size is 1,525).
ʺOtherʺ includes technician, the others and unknown.

Also, in the PRIs, the contributions of postdoctoral fellows as first authors appeared to be
substantially larger than that as all authors. For H papers, the share of postdoctoral fellows
increased by 1.6 times from 13% for all authors to 20% for the first author. The same point applies
to private firms. It increases from 6.3% to 15%.

54

7－6 DIVERSITY OF AUTHORS IN RESEARCH TEAM
This subsection looks briefly at the diversity of authors in specialized academic field,
specialized skill, country of birth, and affiliating sector at the time of submitting the focal papers(Exhibit 33). It is based on the profiles of up to six authors of the focal papers, who include the first,
last and corresponding authors on a preferential basis.
Exhibit 33(a) shows the distribution of the number of academic fields covered by researchteams, where academic fields consist of 27 fields, covering such fields as mathematics, computerscience and chemistry. For both types of papers the authors are most likely to belong to one
discipline. The authors of the H papers are more likely to cover more than one specialized
academic field than the N papers, as shown in the exhibit. This suggests that the researches tend
to be conducted by more interdisciplinary research teams in the H papers (48%) than in N papers(40%).
Exhibit 33(b) shows the distribution of the number of skills covered by research teams, where
there are 3 broad categories of skills: theory, experiment and clinical analysis. In terms of thespecialized skills of authors, there is no large difference between the H papers and N papers. The
share of papers covering 2 or more skills amounts to 31% for H papers and 28% for N papers.
Exhibit 33(c) shows the distribution of the participation of foreign born researchers in researchteams. The H papers are likely to involve the authors who were born in foreign countries as wellas in Japan. This suggests that the researches tend to be conducted by international teams in the
H papers more than those in the N papers. There are a few cases where there are only foreignauthors among 6 authors identified. Including these cases, the shares of the papers with aforeign‐born author amount to 48% of the H papers and to 31% of the N papers.
Exhibit 33(d) shows the distribution of the number of sectors with which the authors of theresearch team is affiliated. The types of the sectors cover higher education institutions, PRIs,
private firms and private non‐profit research institutions. The authors of the H papers are likely
to cover more than one sector than the N papers. The share of papers with the authors covering
more than 2 sectors amounts to 41% in H papers and 31% in N papers.

55

Exhibit 33 Diversity of authors in the research team(a) Combination of specialized academic fields

H papers

52.3%

N papers

32.0%

60.5%

0%

10%

20%

30%

1field2 fields

13.6%

0.3%
8.9%
2.4%

27.8%

40%

50%

3 fields

60%
4 fields

70%

0.4%
1.8%

80%

90%

100%

5 fields(b) Combination of specialized skills

H papers

69.4%

28.6%

2.0%

N papers

72.3%

25.5%

2.3%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

1 skill50%

2 skills

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

3 skills(c) Combination of origins

H papers

51.6%

N papers

47.0%

68.9%

0%

10%

20%

Only Japan

30%

1.4%

30.7%

40%

50%

60%

Combination of Japan and abroad
56

70%

80%

Only abroad

90%

0.4%

100%

57

(d) Combination of sectors

H papers

59.2%

N papers

69.4%

0%

10%

20%

30%

1 sector
Note1:
Note2:
Note3:
Note4:
Note5:

0.4%
3.7%

36.7%

0.1%
2.8%

27.7%

40%

50%

2 sectors

60%

3 sectors

70%

80%

90%

100%

4 sectors(Academic fields of specialization) One specialized field is chosen for each author among 27 fields, covering such fields as mathematics,
computer science and chemistry.
(Specialized skills) One skill is chosen for each author among theory, experiment and clinical analysis(Country of birth) Birth place chosen for each author among Japan and outside of Japan.
(Institutions) One institution is chosen for each author among university and the other higher education institutions, public research
institutions, private firms and private non‐profit research institutions
Based on the sample of all science fields

58

8

INPUTS FOR RESEARCH PROJECTS

8－1 TIME BETWEEN RESEARCH PROJECT CONCEPTION AND THE FOCAL PAPER SUBMISSION
This survey clarifies how many years it takes from the conception of research project throughthe actual launch of research projects to the submission of the focal paper, by asking the scientists
the year they conceived their research projects, the year they actually started their research
projects and the year they submitted their focal papers.
Exhibit 34 shows the average years between the conception and the launch of research projects
and the average years between the launch of research projects and the focal paper submissions, by
type of projects and by scientific field. It shows that the research projects were launched inaround one year after the conception on average in most scientific fields, except forenvironment/ecology and geosciences in the H projects where it took two years on average.
It shows that, in terms of the period between the launch of research projects and the submissionof the focal papers, it took 3.0 and 3.6 years for the H projects and the N projects, respectively. In
the scientific fields except for medicine and life sciences, such as clinical medicine &psychiatry/psychology, basic life sciences and agricultural sciences & plant & animal science, theaverage periods for the H projects are more than 0.5 year shorter than those for the N projects.
Those findings suggest that it usually takes four or five years between the conception ofresearch projects and the submission of the focal papers and that those periods for the H projects
are usually shorter than those for the N projects, although there can be found some differences
between scientific fields1.
As described in Section 6, the researchers of the H projects are likely to recognize theircompetitions both nationally and internationally, and to be concerned to be scooped by thecompetitors than those of the N projects. This may partly explain the differences between the H
and N projects.

1

It is important to note that the focal paper may not be the earliest paper resulted from the research project.

59

Exhibit 34 Time‐lags between the year when the project was conceived and the year when the focal paper was
submitted(a) H projects

All_Sci(563)
8.1_Agr_Sci&Plant&Anim_Sci(60)6_Env/Eco&Geo(30)1_Chem(71)8.2_Basic_Life_Sci(81)5_Eng(68)7_Clin_Med&Psy/Psy(66)2_Mat_Sci(43)3_Phy&Space_Sci(126)
4_Com_Sci&Math(16)S_Social_Sci(2)

1.2
1.4

3.0
3.8
3.0
3.3

2.0
1.5
1.0
1.3
0.9
0.9
1.0
0.6

3.8
3.1
2.9
2.7
2.3
1.3

0.0
1.0
2.0
3.0
4.0
From the conceiving of the project to the launch of the project
From the launch of the project to the submission of the focal paper

5.0

6.0

Years

(b) N
projects

All_Sci(1491)
8.1_Agr_Sci&Plant&Anim_Sci(130)6_Env/Eco&Geo(84)1_Chem(182)
8.2_Basic_Life_Sci(319)5_Eng(136)
7_Clin_Med&Psy/Psy(196)2_Mat_Sci(96)3_Phy&Space_Sci(249)
4_Com_Sci&Math(60)
S_Social_Sci(39)

1.1
1.4
1.4
1.1
0.9
1.3
0.9
1.2
1.1
0.9
0.6

3.6
3.6
3.7
4.1
3.7
3.7
3.2
3.7
3.5
2.7
3.2

0.0
1.0
2.0
3.0
4.0
From the conceiving of the project to the launch of the project
From the launch of the project to the submission of the focal paper
Note1:

5.0

6.0

Years

Result of social sciences in the H projects was not shown due to the small number of responses.

8－2 LABOR INPUT FOR RESEARCH PROJECTS
Labor input is the most basic input for a research project. We asked the respondent to identify
the total labor input in man‐month units, which were consumed by a research team as a wholefrom the time of substantially initiating the research project to the time of submitting the latest
paper from the research project, were asked.
Exhibit 35 shows the following results. First, the distributions of the labor input differ across60scientific fields. Second, the medians and quartiles of distributions of the labor input in the H
projects are higher than those in the N projects, except for environment/ecology and geosciences
and computer science & mathematics. Third, this tendency holds in the distributions by sector.
Forth, the distributions of the labor input do not differ across sectors. Those suggest that the H
projects are likely to consume more labor input for research projects than the N projects in many
fields and in all sectors, and that the labor input for research projects seem not to be dependent on
sectors.
Some research projects consumed more than ten thousand man‐month. They include a large
international research and a research using huge experimental facilities, for example, in particle
physics.
Median labor input for research projects was 100 man‐months for the H projects and 72
man‐months for the N projects; average labor input for research projects was 115 man‐months for
the H projects and 74 man‐months for the N projects. In some scientific fields, such as chemistry,
clinical medicine & psychiatry/psychology, agricultural sciences & plant & animal science, andbasic life sciences, the median labor input for research projects for the H projects was 1.5 to 2 times
that of the N projects. In terms of size of research projects, the median labor input for the H
projects were more than 130 man‐months in chemistry and basic life sciences, and more than 100
man‐months in materials science and clinical medicine & psychiatry/psychology and agriculturalsciences & plant & animal science. In materials science, even the median labor input for the N
projects exceeded 100 man‐months.
As for the distribution of labor input for research projects, no major differences exist between
the sectors. For the H projects, the median labor input for research projects in life sciences wasmore than 120 man‐months in both the HEIs and the PRIs.

Exhibit 35 Total research man‐months expended on the research project(a) Total research man‐months expended on the research project by field

All_Sci

559
1,492

1_Chem

69
181

6
2

50
48

144
96

300
240

2,500
3,000

144
98

2_Mat_Sci

43
99

4
1

55
48

100
100

294
225

2,000
2,000

125
106

3_Phy&Space_Sci

124
249

1
0

39
30

98
70

204
140

25,000
3,600

98
68

4_Com_Sci&Math

16
61

6
1

20
24

41
52

150
112

420
720

48
56

5_Eng

68
135

2
2

48
38

96
67

251
180

11,000
2,268

101
74

6_Env/Eco&Geo

30
85

6
5

37
36

49
72

100
150

3,600
90,00071
77

7_Clin_Med&Psy/Psy

65
196

6
1

60
24

100
50

300
120

12,000
3,360

128
54

8.1_Agr_Sci&Plant&Anim_Sci

60
132

1
5

60
36

120
76

291
180

1,250
1,200

123
78

82
315

3
1

50
41

136
72

450
192

3,600
5,400

159
83

39

1

16

25

67

300

33

8.2_Basic_Life_Sci
MedianS_Social_Sci

Average

1

10

100

1,000

10,000man-months

61

Q1

unit: man-month
Maximum Average
Q3
115
294
25,000180
90,00074

Minimum
10

Respondents

Median
48
100
36
72

(b) By sector

All_sectors

559
1,494

HEIs

395
1,165

1
0

48
36

100
72

288
180

18,00090,000

113
75

114
217

6
1

50
24

104
72

259
180

25,000
2,000

119
67

41
84

1
1

48
30

100
60

350
152

2,000
3,000

110
74

PRIs
MedianPrivate_firms

Average

1

10

100

1,000

Q1

unit: man-month
Q3
Maximum Average
115294
25,000180
90,00074

Minimum
10

Respondents

Median
48
100
36
72

10,000man-months(c) Total research man‐months expended on the research project by sector, by large field

HEIs_Phys_Sci

254
640

HEIs_Life_Sci

86
334

3
1

60
48

120
80

390
200

3,000
5,400

159
88

HEIs_Med

54
154

6
1

60
24

100
49

344
104

12,000
3,360

124
52

57
112

6
2

48
24

99
72

216
180

25,000
2,000

98
69

46
76

10
4

72
34

134
60

351
142

3,600
768

145
65

PRIs_Phys_Sci
MedianPRIs_Life_Sci

Average1
Note1:

Note2:
Note3:

10

100

1,000

Q1

unit: man-month
Q3
Maximum Average
98
240
18,00080
18090,000

Minimum
10

Respondents

Median40
96
36
74

10,000man-months

Red boxplots indicate the distributions for the H projects; and blue ones for the N projects. Left end of boxes indicate the firstquartiles; and right end of boxes the third quartiles. Left end of whiskers indicate the 5th percentile; and right end of whiskers the 95th
percentile. The red bands in bars indicate the medians; and rhombi in bars the means.
Result of social sciences in the H projects was not shown due to the small number of responses.
Total research man‐months in the boxplots are shown in the logarithmic scale.

628－3 AMOUNT OF MONEY SPENT FOR RESEARCH PROJECTS
Amount of money spent for research projects was also surveyed. As for the personnel
expenditures, the surveyed amount includes only those for employing researchers and research
assistants specifically for the research projects, which are typically defrayed by extramural funds.
It was evident from our interviews with faculty members in universities that they tended to
exclude their own salary from the research money spent, which is usually defrayed by intramuralfunds. Also, the surveyed amount included only the expenditures for the facilities that wereintroduced specifically for the research projects, and excluded the cost of using the other facilities,
including those facilities that had existed. For these reasons, the surveyed amount of money
spent for research projects may be significantly less than the total cost for the research projects,
especially in HEIs.
Exhibit 36 shows the results. First, the distributions of the amount of research money spentdiffer significantly across scientific fields. Second, the medians and quartiles of the distributionsof the amount of research money spent in the H projects are higher than those in the N projects,
only except for computer science & mathematics. Third, this tendency holds for the distributions
by sector. Forth, the distributions of the amount of research money spent also differ between
sectors.
For the N projects, depicted by blue boxplots, social sciences spent the least amount of themoney spent among scientific fields (the median was 0.9 million yen); materials science the mostamount of money spent (the median was 11 million yen). In other fields, the median amount ofmoney spent for research projects was less than 5 million yen in clinical medicines &psychiatry/psychology, computer sciences & mathematics; that was 5 to 10 million yen in
environment/ecology and geosciences, chemistry, physics & space science, agricultural sciences &plant & animal science and basic life sciences; and that was more than 10 million yen inengineering. There are some huge research projects that spend several billion yen.
The median amounts of money spent for research projects for the H projects were three to fivetimes more than those for the N projects, except for computer science & mathematics. In total,
the median amount of money spent for research projects was 30 million yen for the H projects and6 million yen for the N projects. In the previous section, it was mentioned that the median labor
input for H projects (100 man‐months) was 1.39 times that of the N projects (72 man‐months).
These results suggest that in the H projects, more amounts of money per unit labor input werespent. The reasons for such difference may include the following: the H projects involved more
researchers employed for the projects, such as postdoctoral fellows and were more likely to haveadvanced experimental equipment and facilities than the N projects.
The results also suggest that the research money spent for research projects seem to be
dependent on sectors. More research money is spent by a private firm, followed by PRIs and thenby HEIs. However, it is important to note that the personnel expenditures are differently
attributed to the projects across HEIs and PRIs, which in turn would influence the results.

63

Exhibit 36 Amount of money spent directly used for the research project(a) By field

All_Sci

556
1,487

1_Chem

71
176

40
0

894
200

3,200
600

7,483 300,000
3,000 500,000

2,864
770

2_Mat_Sci

41
99

8
0

700
346

3,000
1,100

10,000 500,000
4,000 300,000

3,433
1,123

3_Phy&Space_Sci

123
248

0
0

500
142

2,000
600

13,416 2,000,000
3,000 500,000

2,182
564

4_Com_Sci&Math

16
61

0
0

97
90

387
450

846
4,000
1,300 200,000

202
355

5_Eng

68
133

5
0

1,000
200

3,578
1,000

13,473 600,000
4,100 400,000

3,519
939

6_Env/Eco&Geo

30
85

0
0

341
200

2,000
500

4,223
80,0003,000 3,000,000

1,243
848

7_Clin_Med&Psy/Psy

64
196

0
0

500
50

1,732
300

6,000
60,000957 100,000

1,465
193

8.1_Agr_Sci&Plant&Anim_Sci

60
132

80
0

1,500
200

3,500
693

9,000
2,296

50,00040,000

3,543
617

81
318

3
0

2,000
300

4,000
900

20,000 560,000
3,400 200,000

4,416
932

39

0

12

90

Respondents

8.2_Basic_Life_Sci
MedianS_Social_Sci
100 thousand

Average1 million

10 million

100 million

1 billion

Q1
Median
600
3,000
200
600

unit: 10,000 yen
Maximum Average
Q39,925 2,000,000
2,495
3,000 3,000,000
600

Minimum
00

Respondents

548

30,000101

10 billion yen(b) By sector

All_sectors

556
1,489

HEIs

392
1,163

0
0

500
150

2,550
500

8,000 800,000
2,000 900,000

2,110
482

115
215

0
0

1,000
300

3,000
1,500

9,950 2,000,000
6,000 3,000,000

2,889
1,189

40
84

80
0

3,000
500

8,944
3,000

30,000 500,000
12,688 500,000

8,661
2,342

Respondents

PRIs
MedianPrivate_firms
100 thousand

Average1 million

10 million

100 million

1 billion

Q1
Median
600
3,000
200
600

unit: 10,000 yen
Maximum Average
Q39,925 2,000,000
2,495
3,000 3,000,000599

Minimum00

10 billion yen(c) By sector, by large field
Q1
Median
500
2,000
200
500

unit: 10,000 yen
Maximum Average
Q3
8,000 800,000
1,763
2,000 900,000
538

HEIs_Phys_Sci

253
636

Minimum
00

HEIs_Life_Sci

85
336

100
0

1,500
300

4,000
800

20,000 560,000
3,000 120,000

4,289
729

HEIs_Med

53
154

20
0

500
50

2,000
300

6,000
60,000900 100,000

1,656
195

58
109

0
0

1,000
300

2,898
2,500

9,078 2,000,000
12,000 3,000,000

2,594
1,543

46
77

3
1

2,000
400

3,742
1,200

13,55490,0005,000 200,000

3,767
1,102

PRIs_Phys_Sci
MedianPRIs_Life_Sci
100 thousand

Note1:

Note2:
Note3:

Average1 million

10 million

100 million

1 billion

10 billion yen

Red boxplots indicate the distributions for the H projects; and blue ones for the N projects. Left end of boxes indicate the first quartiles;
and right end of boxes the third quartiles. Left end of whiskers indicate the 5th percentile; and right end of whiskers the 95th percentile.
The red bands in bars indicate the medians; and rhombi in bars the means.
Result of social sciences in the H projects was not shown due to the small number of responses.
Amounts of research money spent in the boxplots are shown in the logarithmic scale.

648－4 SOURCES OF FUNDS FOR RESEARCH PROJECTS
8－4－1 Combination of Multiple Sources of Funds
Exhibit 37 shows the frequency of the combinations of multiple sources of funds for research
projects. Most projects use extramural funds: only 12% of the H projects use only intramuralfund and only 23% of the N projects use only intramural fund. At the same time, a majority of the
projects use intramural fund: 75% of the H projects and 85% of the N projects.
The H projects are likely to use more multiple sources of funds for research projects than the N
projects. The H projects tend to use extramural funds more than the N projects; and the H
projects tend to use intramural funds less than the N projects. Especially, for 23% and 18% of the
H projects in HEIs and PRIs and 13% and 8% of the N projects in HEIs and PRIs, respectively, theirresearch projects had been supported by more than three sources of extramural funds as well as
by intramural funds.
The combination of sources of funds also differs between private firms and the others. Morethan 80% of research projects conducted in private firms had been supported by intramural funds,
while more than 80% of research projects conducted in HEIs had been supported by extramuralfunds.
Exhibit 37 Combination of sources of funds

All_sectors_H(560)12%All_sectors_N(1494)
HEIs_H(395)

26%

16%

23%
7%

24%

18%

19%

34%

PRIs_H(115)

16%

37%

27%

Private_firms_H(41)

17%

11%

8% 4%3%

23%

12%

8% 7%

19%

13%

8% 4%3%

12%

49%

15%

18%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

12% 3%

11%8%

13% 4%

10%12%

12% 2%

14%

6%1%5%2%

80%

90% 100%

72%

Only intramural fundintramural fund + two extramural funds
One extramural fundThree or more extramural funds

Note3:

7% 5%

35%

Private_firms_N(85)Note1:
Note2:

13%

33%

HEIs_N(1163)

PRIs_N(219)

21%

70%

intramural fund + one extramural fundintramural fund + three or more extramural funds
Two extramural funds

In each sector, the upper figure shows the result of the H projects and the lower figure shows the result of the N projects
The “intramural fund” indicates fund of the institutions that the research team members belong to, based on the government grants for
operative expenses etc. for the HEIs, and the internal fund for private firms.
The “extramural” covers both the fund from the institution‐base programs, such as the subsidies of the COE programs, as well as thefunds from the project‐base programs, such as the Grant‐in‐Aid for Scientific Research, the Health and Labor Sciences Research Grants,
and from JST, NEDO, and private firms.

65

8－4－2 Disaggregated sources of funds
Exhibit 38 shows the composition of disaggregated sources of funds on a simple average basis
over the projects. For example, in the case of a fund accounting for n% for a research project such
source has a weight of n/100, irrespective of the amount of funds for research projects.
The compositions of sources of funds differ between sectors. Even in the same sector, the H
projects are likely to be supported by more multiple sources of funds than the N projects.
In HEIs, the N projects were funded by intramural funds (40% of the total cost) and by the
Grants‐in‐Aid for Scientific Research (34%), which is the fundamental funds for academic researchin Japan, for research projects. They also used the other extramural funds from governments inJapan and from private firms (8% and 8%, respectively). On the other hand, the H projects were
funded by the Grants‐in‐Aid for Scientific Research (40%), intramural funds (20%), and otherextramural funds from governments in Japan (12%). It is noteworthy that funds from JST (theJapan Science and Technology Agency), a funding agency for strategic research under MEXT (theMinistry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology), accounted for 10% of the fundsof the H projects. In PRIs, the two most utilized types of sources of funds were intramural funds
and other extramural funds from governments in Japan for both H and N projects. They also use
the funds of the Grants‐in‐Aid for Scientific Research, and the funds from JST. It is distinctivethat funds from NEDO (the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization),a R&D funding agency under METI (the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry), accounted formore in the H projects (7%) than in the N projects (2%).
In private firms, the two most utilized types of sources of funds were intramural funds andextramural funds from other private firms, which might include commissioned research. The
sum of them accounted for 82% and 92% in the H and N projects, respectively. Also otherextramural funds from governments accounted for 12% in the H projects.
Those results suggest that each type of source of fund fulfils different function. Presumably,
intramural funds underpin the whole of research projects. Funds of the Grants‐in‐Aid for
Scientific Research have the functions of supporting to produce research results continuously aswell as of underpinning the whole of research projects. Funds from JST and NEDO may
provide large inputs for the promising research projects to produce papers to be highly cited.

66

Exhibit 38 Composition of Sources of Funds (a research project base)(a) HEIs（H projects）(b) HEIs(N projects)

Other research fund(such as Foundations)
2%
Reserch fund fromprivate firms
8%
Research fund fromforeign government
2%

Other research fund(such as Foundations)
3%
Reserch fund fromprivate firms
6%
Research fund fromforeign government
4%

Intramural
fund
20%

Other research funds
from Japanese
government
8%
Research fund fromNEDO
1%
Research fund from JST
4%

Other researchfunds fromJapanesegovernment
12%
Research fund fromNEDO
3%Health Labour Sciences
Research Grant
1%

Grants‐in‐
Aid for
Scientific
Research
40%

Research fundfrom JST
10%
Health Labour Sciences
Research Grant
2%

Grants‐in‐
Aid for
Scientific
Research
34%(c) PRIs（H projects）(d) PRIs (N projects)

Other research fund(such as Foundations)
2%

Other researchfunds fromJapanesegovernment
18%

Intramural
fund
40%

Other research fund(such as Foundations)
2%

Reserch fund fromprivate firms
2%
Research fund fromforeign government
5%

Other researchfunds fromJapanesegovernment
19%

Intramural
fund
39%

Reserch fund fromprivate firms
3%
Research fund fromforeign government
1%

Intramural
fund
46%

Research fund fromNEDO
2%
Research fund fromNEDO
7%

Research fundfrom JST
10%

Research fund from JST
8%

Health Labour Sciences
Research Grant
3%

Health Labour Sciences
Research Grant Grants‐in‐Aid
4%

Grants‐in‐Aid
for Scientific
Research
16%

for Scientific
Research
13%67

(e) Private firms （H projects）(f) Private firms (N projects)

Other research fund(such as Foundations)
1%

Reserch fund fromprivate firms
8%
Research fund from
NEDO
Research fund from1%
foreign government
Grants‐in‐Aid for2%
Scientific Research
Other research funds
1%from Japanese
government
3%

Reserch fundfrom private
firms
16%

Other researchfunds fromJapanesegovernment
12%
Research fund from JST
4%
Grants‐in‐Aid for
Scientific Research2%

Note1:
Note2:

Intramural
fund
66%

Intramural
fund
84%

The “intramural fund” covers the fund of the institutions that the research team members belong to, based on the government grant for
operative expenses etc. for the HEIs, and its own fund for private firms.
The “other research funds from Japanese government” covers both the institution‐base competitive extramural research funds, such as thesubsidies in the COE programs, and the project‐base competitive extramural funds, except for the Grant‐in‐Aid for Scientific Research, theHealth and Labor Sciences Research Grants, and funds from JST and NEDO, and non‐competitive extramural research funds, such as
government‐led national projects, and extramural funds from local governments in Japan.

68

9

OUTPUTS AND IMPACTS OF THE RESEARCH PROJECTS

9－1 NUMBER OF REFEREED PAPERS FROM RESEARCH PROJECTS
Exhibit 39 and Exhibit 40 show the distribution of the refereed papers from a research project bylanguage and the combined number of such papers by field (the sum of number of Japanese
papers, English papers, and the others). The papers written in English account for most of thepapers from H projects (91.9%) and from N projects (87.0%). The percentage of papers written in
Japanese is higher in the N projects than in H projects.
In Exhibit 40, red boxplots indicate the distributions for the H projects; and blue ones for the N
projects. The left end of boxes indicates the first quartile; and the right end of boxes the third
quartile. The left end of whiskers indicates the 5th percentile; and the right end of whiskers the95th percentile. The red bands in bars indicate the medians; and rhombi in bars the means.
In all fields combined, H projects produced 15 papers for the median and 40 papers on average.
N projects produces 7 for its median and 18 on average. In all fields, there is a large gap between
the median and the average and the averages are significantly larger than the medians. It isbecause there exist a small number of research projects that produce many papers in each field
and at the same time more than one quarter of the projects produce 6 or less (3 or less) papers in
H (N) projects. It is considered that it reflects the fact that the discovery process in scientificresearch is uncertain and cumulative1. The following discussion uses mainly the medians of thenumber of papers from a project.
We can see that H projects produce substantially more papers than N projects in all fields. In all
fields aggregated, the ratio of the median number of papers across H and N projects (15/7) islarger than the ratio of research’s man months (100 /72), although it is smaller than the ratio of
research fund (30 million yen/6 million yen). According to the distribution of the number of
papers, the distance between the first quartile and the third quartile is much larger in H projects,
compared to N projects. This indicates that a relatively large share of H projects generate a large
number of the refereed papers.
There is no big difference across sectors in the number of produced papers (Exhibit 40(b)).

1

In fact, the number of papers follows more a power law distribution than a log normal distribution, unlike thesize of labor input. Newman M. E. J. (2006)，“Power laws, Pareto distributions and Zipf’s law”, Contemporary
Physics, 46 ; 323 – 351.

69

Exhibit 39 Distribution of the refereed papers from a research project by language(a)Highly-Cited Papers Producing Grop(b)Normal Group

0.2%

0.5%

7.9%

12.5%

87.0%

91.9%

Japanese

EnglishOther languages

Japanese

EnglishOther languages

Exhibit 40 Distributions of the number of refereed papers yielded from research project(a) Distribution of the number of refereed papers by field
Respondents

556
1,472
71
180
43
98
126
249
16
59
67
136
29
83
61
187
59
130
82
311
39

All_Sci
1_Chem2_Mat_Sci
3_Phy&Space_Sci
4_Com_Sci&Math
5_Eng
6_Env/Eco&Geo
7_Clin_Med&Psy/Psy
8.1_Agr_Sci&Plant&Anim_Sci

8.2_Basic_Life_Sci
MedianS_Social_Sci

Average

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

Minimum
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1

Q1
Median
6.0
15.0
3.0
7.0
9.0
18.0
3.0
8.0
10.0
20.0
4.0
10.0
9.3
16.0
4.0
8.0
4.8
8.0
3.0
5.0
7.5
15.0
4.0
6.0
5.0
10.0
3.0
7.0
5.0
10.0
2.0
5.0
4.5
10.0
3.0
6.0
6.0
20.0
3.0
7.0
1.5
3.0

unit: papers
Maximum Average
Q3
39.3
590
39.7
15.0
950
17.8
32.0
322
42.3
20.0
298
17.5
51.0
500
53.9
25.0
343
26.8
50.0
500
51.6
20.0
350
23.0
10.5
24
9.1
9.5
120
10.1
41.0
590
44.4
15.0
179
14.6
25.0
130
27.6
17.5
950
27.4
46.0
120
27.8
12.0
440
17.6
20.0
170
22.4
11.8
122
11.7
36.5
419
37.5
12.5
406
15.0
5.5
110
10.2

Q1
6.0
3.0

Median15.0
7.0

unit: papers
Maximum Average
Q3
39.3
590
39.7
15.0
950
17.8

45 50papers(b) Distribution of the number of refereed papers by sector

All_sectors

556
1,473

Minimum
1
1

HEIs

393
1,151

1
1

7.0
3.0

15.0
6.0

40.0
15.0

590
950

42.1
18.1

113
215

1
1

5.0
4.0

12.0
8.0

35.0
17.5

350
194

30.2
16.7

41
81

1
1

5.0
2.0

12.0
4.0

39.0
12.0

400
406

45.7
15.7

Respondents

PRIs
MedianPrivate_firms

Average0

Note1:

Note2:
Note3:

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45 50papers

Red boxplots indicate the distributions for the H projects; and blue ones for the N projects. Left end of boxes indicate the first quartiles;
and right end of boxes the third quartiles. Left end of whiskers indicate the 5th percentile; and right end of whiskers the 95th percentile.
The red bands in bars indicate the medians; and rhombi in bars the means.
Result of social sciences in the H projects was not shown due to the small number of responses.
Results show the summation of refereed papers written in Japanese, English, and other language. The responses saying the number ofreviewed paper from the projects was 0 were excluded from the results.

70

9－2 FOLLOW‐UP RESEARCH, COMMISSIONED RESEARCH, JOINT RESEARCH AND TECHNICALGUIDANCE
Most of the research projects have brought about follow‐up research to the research team.
Comparing H projects and N projects, the incidence of the existence of follow‐up research ishigher in H projects (90%, vs. 76% for all sectors aggregated). HEIs and the public research section
have similar levels of the probability of follow‐up research, and such probability is low for
private firms’ research.
As shown in Exhibit 41, the reasons of the absence of follow‐up research are as follow: (a)research project completed its mission for around 70% of such cases, and (f) the transfer of themember made the follow‐up impossible for 20% of such cases. (g) ʺOthersʺ reason is also often thechange of the research team members such as the retirement of a professor. Thus, there aresubstantial number of cases that research project become to an end because of the personnel
change and professor’s retirement.
On the other hand, the share of answers that refer to a research funding constraint is not solarge, about 10%. No one chose a lost competition reason [(d)].

Exhibit 41 Status of the follow‐up research and the reason of not bringing follow‐up research(a) Status of the follow‐up research

All_sectors_H(562)90%All_sectors_N(1508)

10%

76%

24%

HEIs_H(396)92%

HEIs_N(1176)

8%

77%

PRIs_H(116)

23%

88%

PRIs_N(218)

12%

78%

Private_firms_H(41)

22%

73%

Private_firms_N(86)

27%

65%

0%

10%

20%

35%

30%

40%

Yes

No

71

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

(b) Reason for the absence of a follow‐up research(a) The research project completed its mission

67%
72%

(f) The transfer of a research team member made it impossible to do thefollow‐up research

21%
22%

(g) Other17%8%(b) Other more promising research projects were found

17%
23%

(c) We could not obtain research funds to do the follow‐up research

9%10%(e) We discontinued the research, judging that the follow‐up researchwould not achieve sufficient results

7%8%(d) We discontinued the research because we lost the researchcompetition to a competitor

0%
0%

0%
H projects

Note1:

10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
N projects

In each sector, the upper figure is for the H projects and the lower figure is for the N projects

Also, the research project outcome and the research capability built through the project havedeveloped into a commissioned research, a joint research and technology guidance by the
research members. While the technical guidance would be mainly provided to a company, thesource of the fund for commissioned research could be either a private company or a publicresearch support organization. Comparing H projects and N projects, the former group is much
more likely to result in these events, as seen in Exhibit 42 (40％ vs. 23％ in commissioned
research、76％ vs. 57％ in joint research, 38％ vs. 27％ in technical guidance).
Materials science and basic life sciences belong to the 3 highest rank fields in all threeincidences of commissioned research, joint research, and technical guidance. In these fields, theprobability that the research result is further developed in cooperation with an outsideorganization or it is transferred to private companies is high. However it is important to note thatthe follow‐up research and the commissioned research/joint research may overlaps each other,although there are cases where only follow‐up research exists or the cases where only
commissioned research and joint research exists.

72

Exhibit 42 Status of commissioned research, joint research and technical guidance%, projects resulted in%, projects resulted in %, projects resulted incommissioned
joint researchtechnical guidance
research

Responses

H projects

N projects

H projects

N projects

H projects

N projects

H projects

N projects

All_Sci

539

1,401

40.1%

23.4%

75.9%

57.0%

37.5%

27.4%

1_Chem

65

142

40.0%

21.1%

76.9%

58.5%

30.8%

33.1%

2_Mat_Sci

43

97

60.5%

39.2%

86.0%

63.9%

51.2%

35.1%

3_Phy&Space_Sci

119

238

31.9%

21.8%

75.6%

56.3%

24.4%

21.8%

4_Com_Sci&Math

16

56

0.0%

14.3%

56.3%

35.7%

12.5%

12.5%

5_Eng

65

132

56.9%

29.5%

67.7%

50.0%

40.0%

26.5%

6_Env/Eco&Geo

30

82

36.7%

36.6%

70.0%

64.6%

16.7%

25.6%

7_Clin_Med&Psy/Psy

63

185

28.6%

16.2%

71.4%

47.0%

46.0%

24.3%

8.1_Agr_Sci&Plant&Anim_Sci

58

127

43.1%

26.0%

79.3%

66.1%

44.8%

37.0%

8.2_Basic_Life_Sci

78

308

44.9%

21.1%

84.6%

65.6%

55.1%

29.5%

S_Social_Sci

2

34

-

8.8%

-

20.6%

-

14.7%

Note1:The number of research projects which yielded 1 or more commissioned research, joint research and technical guidance was counted.

73

9－3 GRADUATE EDUCATION THROUGH THE RESEARCH PROJECT
In order to see the education effects of the research project, Exhibit 43 shows the share ofresearch projects that produced a masterʹs degree and a doctoral degree. In all fields combined,almost a half of research projects produce masterʹs degree, and about 70% of them produce
doctoral degrees. As a whole, a research project produces doctoral degrees more often.
We have seen earlier that doctoral students are often the first authors of the papers when theorder of the authors is according to their contribution to the research, while it is rare that masteror undergraduate students are the first authors (see Exhibit 32). This is consistent with a larger
incidence of doctoral degrees from research projects. H projects tend to produce more degrees.
Exhibit 43 Training of human resources in the research project(a) Share of research projects that produced a masterʹs degree
All_Sci
1_Chem2_Mat_Sci
5_Eng
3_Phy&Space_Sci
8.1_Agr_Sci&Plant&Anim_Sci

55%
51%
83%
71%
63%
65%
60%
66%
59%
61%
58%
49%

4_Com_Sci&Math

50%
46%
40%
47%
31%
48%

7_Clin_Med&Psy/Psy

21%
18%

S_Social_Sci

28%

8.2_Basic_Life_Sci
6_Env/Eco&Geo

0%

10%

20%

30%

H projects

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

80%

90%

N projects(b) Share of research projects that produced a doctorʹs degree
All_Sci

74%
65%

8.1_Agr_Sci&Plant&Anim_Sci

82%
66%

8.2_Basic_Life_Sci

79%
74%

5_Eng

76%
62%

1_Chem76%
62%

3_Phy&Space_Sci

73%
66%

2_Mat_Sci

72%56%

7_Clin_Med&Psy/Psy

71%
65%

4_Com_Sci&Math

63%
48%

6_Env/Eco&Geo

53%
62%

S_Social_Sci

50%
0%

10%

20%

30%

H projects
Note1:

Both degrees cover both domestic and foreign born students.

74

40%
N projects

50%

60%

70%

9－4 PATENT APPLICATION, LICENSE AGREEMENT OR PATENT ASSIGNMENT
Exhibit 44 and Exhibit 45 show the incidence of patent application (domestic and/ or foreign
application), license agreement or the assigned patent. 42% of the H projects and 23% of the N
projects led to at least one patent application on average. The incidence that the H projects led topatent applications is high. In addition, the incidence of a foreign patent application conditionalon a patent application is 62% in the H projects and 50% in the N projects as Exhibit 45 shows.
If we focus on sectors, many research projects of private company led to patent application: 78%
from the H projects and 63% from the N projects. Comparing universities and public researchorganization, the incidence that the research project of the public research organization has
resulted in patents application tends to be higher. About 50% of the H projects of the publicresearch organization led to patent applications.
As for a license agreement and the assignment of patents1, both of them are significantly more
frequent for the H projects on average, and the incidence of the license agreement is particularlyhigh (7.5% in the H projects vs. 3.6% in the N projects). Since higher quality patent is more likely
to be licensed, these results suggest that there is a positive correlation between the quality ofacademic publication and the quality of a patent at project level, consistent with the patterns
observed across individuals (See Stephan (2010) for a review). However, interestingly, in theprivate firms, there are more license agreements and assignments in the N projects than in the H
projects. The assignments of a patent reach 18% of N projects in particular. The share of license
agreement and assignments would be higher in N projects than H projects in the private firms
because private firms would use the higher value patents internally while they are more ready toassign or license lower value patents.
As Exhibit 46 indicates, know‐how is supplied for most cases when patent license agreement
and assignments occur (73% in the H projects, 80% in the N projects in all fields). This suggeststhat the invention that became the object of the license agreement is often actually used in one way
or another, including its development research, since the provision of knowhow is not necessary
for blocking. In addition, it is possible that there the incidence of license and assignment isunderestimated, because about 20% of the responses on the license agreement and assignment
were ʺunknownʺ.
Next, the variation across fields can be seen in Exhibit 45. The shares of the patent application
are especially high in materials science, chemistry, engineering, and exceed 50% in the H projects.
The incidence of foreign application conditional on patent application does not vary significantly,
but the incidence is high (77.8%) in clinical medicine & psychiatry/psychology of the H projects. It
is thought that it reflects the importance of the U.S. market in the field of medicine and the clinicaltesting in U.S. As for the incidence of the license agreement, it exceeds 10% in chemistry, materials
science, and basic life sciences in the H projects, 5% in materials science and basic life sciences in
the N projects.
Finally, the Exhibit 47 shows the size distribution of the licensees or assignees. It focuses on thecases that the license agreement took place in the H projects. Companies that employ more than
250 employees are about three‐fourths. In addition, the start‐up companies, which were1

It is important to note that an assignment of a patent can take place without a patent application, since the legal
right to apply for a patent can be transferred.

75

established less than 5 years ago, got license agreements for around a quarter of the cases. They
play a relatively important role for the commercialization of new discovery from science.

Exhibit 44 Patent application, license agreement or patent assignment(a) Incidence of patent application

All_sectors_H(564)42%All_sectors_N(1502)

58%

23%

HEIs_H(397)

77%

36%

HEIs_N(1170)

64%

19%

81%

PRIs_H(117)48%

PRIs_N(218)

52%

31%

69%

Private_firms_H(41)78%

Private_firms_N(86)

22%

63%

0%

20%

37%

40%
Yes

76

No

60%

80%

100%

(b) Incidence of license agreement or patent assignment

All_sectors_H(563)All_sectors_N(1494) 4%4%

HEIs_H(397)

19%

73%

19%

66%

7% 8%

HEIs_N(1165) 3%4%

20%

74%

PRIs_H(116)

10% 3%

PRIs_N(216)

6% 3%

69%

22%

Private_firms_H(41)

5% 5%

71%

20%

Private_firms_N(85)7%0%(a) Licensed

Note1:

19%

67%

7% 6%

(b) Assigned

20%

15%

60%

18%

10%

20%

67%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

(c) Neither licensed nor assigned

80%

90%

100%

(d) Don’t know

In each sector, the upper figure shows the result of the H projects and the lower figure shows the result of the N projects

77

Exhibit 45 Patent application by field and patent application abroad
Projects which resulted in patentapplications
H projects

All_Sci
1_Chem2_Mat_Sci
3_Phy&Space_Sci
4_Com_Sci&Math
5_Eng
6_Env/Eco&Geo
7_Clin_Med&Psy/Psy
8.1_Agr_Sci&Plant&Anim_Sci
8.2_Basic_Life_Sci
S_Social_Sci"yes" responses
Respondents

236
43
33
43
4
40
1
18
24
30
236
564

%, projects which resulted inpatent applications

N projects

H projects

350
64
46
51
16
44
7
17
30
75
350
1,500

41.8%
60.6%
76.7%
33.9%
58.8%
27.3%
40.0%
37.0%
236
564

N projects

23.3%
36.4%
46.5%
20.2%
26.2%
32.1%
8.2%
8.6%
22.7%
23.4%
350
1,500

%, of which, the projects which
resulted in patent applications toabroadH projects

N projects

62.1%
62.8%
66.7%
61.9%
57.5%
77.8%
62.5%
56.7%
146
235

50.0%
40.6%
39.1%
54.9%
75.0%
47.7%
57.1%
52.9%
43.3%
58.7%
175
350

Note1：Figures are not shown for the cases where the sample number is very small.

Exhibit 46 License agreement or the patent assignment and the provision of know‐how (by field)%, Lic ense agreem ent or patentass ignm ent%, License agreem ent

H projects

All_Sci
1_Chem2_Mat_Sci
3_Phy&Space_Sci
4_Com_Sci&Math
5_Eng
6_Env/Eco&Geo
7_Clin_Med&Psy/Psy
8.1_Agr_Sci&Plant&Anim_Sci
8.2_Basic_Life_Sci
S_Social_Sci"yes" responses
Respondents
Note1:
Note2:

7.5%
12.7%
14.0%
1.6%
5.9%
0.0%
7.6%
6.8%
12.2%
42
563

N projec ts

H projects

3.6%
3.6%
7.1%
1.2%
4.9%
2.9%
2.4%
3.0%
2.3%
5.9%
53
1,492

13.7%
19.7%
27.9%
4.0%
16.2%
3.3%
13.6%
15.3%
17.1%
77
563

N projects

7.8%
11.4%
18.2%
4.3%
8.2%
8.0%
3.5%
3.0%
9.8%
9.7%
117
1,492

%, of which, the know-how was
also provided
H projects

72.7%
92.9%
83.3%
80.0%
45.5%
77.8%
55.6%
64.3%
56
77

N projects

79.5%
84.2%
77.8%
70.0%
100.0%
90.0%
100.0%
100.0%
84.6%
65.5%
89
112

20% of the respondents chose ʺdon’t knowʺ for license and assignment.
No statistics shown for small sample cases.

Exhibit 47 Size of firms to which the patents were licensed or assigned; and the share of the start‐up firms(H projects)780 - 9 employees

10 - 49
employees

50 - 249
employees

250 or more
employees%, size of firms to which the patents
were licensed or assigned

11.7%

11.7%

10.4%

74.0%

%, start-up firms

77.8%

66.7%

12.5%

8.8%

79

Average share of
the stat-up firms

Total

83

22.9%

19

9－5 ESTABLISHMENT OF START‐UP COMPANY AND CONTRIBUTION TO THE STANDARDIZATIONThe share of the research projects that led to a new start‐up company is only a few percents (lessthan 3% in the H projects on average). However, a little over 6% of cases they examined seriously
starting‐up a company even when they did not actually do so. Combining them would amount toabout 10% in total, suggesting that the possibility of a start‐up company is considered as a real
option.
As for standard, positive answers that either the research outcome led to a standard or its
standardization is under consideration were given for around 10% of the projects in all sciences,including universities.

Exhibit 48 Incidence of the establishment of a start‐up company and of the research output resulting in standards(a) Start‐up companies

All_sectors_H(563) 3%

97%

All_sectors_N(1513) 2%

98%

HEIs_H(397) 3%

97%

HEIs_N(1180) 2%

98%

PRIs_H(116) 2%

98%

PRIs_N(219)100%

Private_firms_H(41) 5%

95%

Private_firms_N(86)

100%

0%

20%

40%
Yes

80

No

60%

80%

100%

(b) Standards

All_sectors_H(562)

90%

5% 5%

All_sectors_N(1507) 3%4%

93%

HEIs_H(397)

90%

5% 5%

HEIs_N(1176) 3%4%

93%

PRIs_H(115)

4% 10%

PRIs_N(217)

5% 3%

92%

5%

95%

Private_firms_H(41)85%

Private_firms_N(86) 3% 6%

0%

91%

20%

40%

60%

80%

Did lead to a standard
Currently discussing standardization based on the findings
Did not lead to a standard

Note1:

In each sector, the upper figure is for the H projects and the lower figure is for the N projects

81

100%

9－6 OTHER RESEARCH RESULTS SUCH AS MATERIALSThe results coming out of research projects are diverse. In many research projects, diverse
research materials came about, which the other research teams can use, such as biological or
non‐biological material, a database, software, and the other ʺresearch toolsʺ. 32% of the H projects(biological 10%, non‐biological 22%) and 23% in the N projects (biological 8%, non‐biological 15%)
produced materials.
In addition, 14% of the H projects generate database (the development of the database, the offer
of new data to an existing database), 10% generate devices, and 6% generate the program
software (8%, 10%, and 8% each in the N projects).
Comparing with the H projects and the N projects, the H projects generates materials anddatabases substantially more frequently than the N projects.
Exhibit 49 Other research results such as materials (all sciences, %)(b) Non‐biological Material

22%
15%

(c) Existing or new Database

14%8%(a) Biological Material

10%8%(e) Equipment or Device

10%
10%

(f) Other research tools

7%5%(d) Program Software

6%
8%

0%

5%

10%
H projects

Note1:
Note2:

The choice is non‐exclusive.
The result of all fields.

82

N projects

15%

20%

25%

9－7 SUMMARY OF THE OUTPUT OF RESEARCH PROJECTS
Finally, Exhibit 50 provides a summary of the outputs from a research project. Outputs areordered with their incidences in the H projects. It can see that diverse outputs are produced byresearch projects. All of follow‐up research, commissioned or joint research, doctoral degrees,masterʹs degrees, and research tools are produced in more than 40% of research projects of both H
projects and N projects. The training of the post‐doctor is performed in 63% in the H projects, andthe research projects that have applied for patent did exceed 40%.
Comparing the H projects and the N projects, the incidence of the output is higher in all aspects
in the H projects.
Exhibit 50 Summary of the output and the impact of research projectH projects

N projects

Projects that
resulted in the

Projects that

Responses

Ratio(a)output/impact

resulted in the

Responses

Ratio(b)(a)/(b)output/impact

Refereed papers

556

556

100%

1,472

1,472

100%

1.0

Follow-up research

504

562

90%

1,142

1,508

76%

1.2

Commissioned research and Joint
research

428

539

79%

853

1,403

61%

1.3

Ph. D recipients

416

562

74%

974

1,509

65%

1.1

Training of Post Doctoral fellows

354

562

63%

571

1,506

38%

1.7

Master's degree recipients

309

562

55%

764

1,506

51%

1.1

Research tools 1)

284

566

50%

654

1,515

43%

1.2

Patent applications

236

564

42%

350

1,502

23%

1.8

Technical guidance

202

539

37%

385

1,403

27%

1.4

Licensing or assignment

77

563

14%

117

1,494

8%

1.7

Internal commercialization 2)

61

564

11%

155

1,507

10%

1.1

Standards 3)

59

562

10%

110

1,507

7%

1.4

Stat-up firms

15

563

3%

27

1,513

2%

1.5

Note1:
Note2:
Note3:

Either of 6 categories of research tools in Exhibit 49.
Commercialization by a team member or by the organization with which it is affiliated.
Include both the case where the research outcome led to a standard and the case where it is under discussions.

83

10

CONCLUSIONSThis paper has reported the initial findings from a large‐scale survey of Japanese researchers on
the knowledge creation process in science. One third of the samples are from highly cited papers
in each science field by year (top 1% in the world, H papers) and the rest are from the otherrandomly selected papers (N papers). We call the research projects that yielded H (N) papers by H
projects (N projects). The response rate is 29% for the H papers and 27% for the N papers and wecollected 2,100 responses in total. The survey covered all scientific fields, including social sciences.
Around 90 % of the surveyed scientists belonged to university and the other higher education
institutions or public research institutions. Approximately 90% of the respondents executed thecentral part of the projects and 80% of them at least some role (more than a half of the surveyed
scientists the central role) in the management of the projects.
The survey characterized the motivations of the research projects, the knowledge sources which
inspired the projects, uncertainty in the knowledge creation process, research competition,
composition of the research team, sources of research money, and the research outputs, including
the papers, the patents, license/assignment, the collaborative research projects and startups.
Major findings are as follow:
1. The Japanese scientists are fairly mobile. 40 % (33%) of the respondents for H (N)papers moved across organizations during 5 years preceding to the initiation of the
projects. 54 % (50%) of the respondents for H (N) papers stayed abroad for one year
or more for study or research. The scientists with H papers are more mobile.
2. As for research outputs, “proposing a new research issue” is much more prevalentfor H papers than for N papers, consistent with another finding that “contribution to
the development of research in related field” was chosen very frequently by the
respondents of the H papers as a reason significantly explaining its high level ofcitations (60%, only next to “high Novelty”).
3. A significant part of the research projects are very importantly motivated both by
ʺPursuit of fundamental principles/understandingsʺ and by ʺSolving specific issues
in real lifeʺ. Thus, even if we define ʺPasteur’s quadrantʺ narrowly (both motivations
are very important), it is quantitatively important in scientific research. The level ofmotivation is stronger in H projects than in N projects for both objectives, but
especially on ʺPursuit of fundamental principles/understandingsʺ.
4. A large majority of the focal papers involved surprise in either research process or in
research outcome. A majority of research projects generated serendipitous output(that is, the research output found answers to questions not originally posed). H
papers involved more surprises and serendipity.
5. Most researchers recognize the extent of research competition ex‐ante (only aminority chose ʺdon’t know answerʺ) and a significant share of researchers wereconcerned with priority loss (more than 50%) in H projects, although substantiallyless (a little over 30%) in N projects. Competition is global in most fields.
6. There are significant differences in the level of implementation and the perceived
effectiveness of research management practices across H projects and N projects.
84Such differences are large for setting the research goal (such as setting of ambitious
research project goal and setting of research project goals consistent with thedirections of science) and the design of the research team (such as having theparticipations of researchers with diverse academic fields and young scholars).
7. Non‐author research members are important (the median size of authors is 6
persons (4 persons) for H papers (N papers), while the median size of non‐author
research team members are 2 persons for both). At the same time, the authors of the
focal paper often cover those who did only non‐research works such as providing
research materials, equipments and funds.
8. Research teams with more diversity in terms of disciplines and nationalities seem toperform better. Young scholars are important contributors for research efforts.
Post‐doctoral students and doctoral students are often the first authors of H papers(around 40%) when the order of the authors is according to their contributions.
9. Majority of research projects use more than one funding sources. While H projects
use more multiple external funding sources, only a minority of projects use only
external funding.
10. The distribution of the number of refereed papers produced from a project is highly
skewed. There exist a small number of research projects which produced many
papers and at the same time a significant fraction of them produced only a modest
number of papers.
11. Research projects generate not only research papers, but also outputs useful forindustrial innovation, including patent applications, licensing/assignment,
collaborative research, startups and standard. 40% (23%) of the H projects (Nprojects) resulted in commissioned research and 76% (57%) of the H projects (Nprojects) resulted in joint research with an external organization. More than 42%(23%) of the H projects (N projects) involved at least one patent application. 7.5%
(3.6%) of the H projects (N projects) resulted in licensing. In addition, the patents of
6 % (4%) of the H projects (N projects) were assigned. 3 % (2%) of the H projects (Nprojects) resulted in startups. 5% (3%) of H projects (N projects) led to standards.
Thus, H projects yielded significantly more outputs useful for industrial innovationin all these measures.
12. A majority of licensing/assignment (70% to 80%) was associated with the provisionof know‐how.
13. Educational outputs of the research projects are also important. 74% (65%) of H (N)projects produced doctoral degrees. They also often produced materials and theother research tools.

There are some important implications of our initial findings upon “research on research” andupon science policy, although many of them are preliminary observations. First, Pasteur’squadrant is quantitatively important. This implies that complementarity exists for science andinnovation even at project level for a significant share of science. In such area, a university andindustry collaboration would be particularly important. Second, uncertainty is important inscientific discovery process, so that it is important to ensure ex‐post flexibility in research scope tocapture unexpected opportunities. This implies that the funding system has to be flexible enough85

to facilitate such response. It will be an important research issue to assess how the funding system
as whole, including the intramural fund, function efficiently to support the development of theseeds for the research from diverse perspectives, their selection as well as the ex‐post flexibility.
Third, scientists perceive competition well ex ante although scientists perceiving priority threat
is more a minority for the scientists for N projects (a half for the scientists for H projects). There is asignificant variation of perceived competition across sectors, and it will be an important researchissue to understand the determinants of ex‐ante competition and their impact on research
performance. Fourth, research management seems to matter, especially given that the team has
become important. In this context, analyzing how particular management practice such as
ensuring the diversity of academic fields and the participation of a young scholar in a researchteam affects the research performance is an important issue. Fifth, our study shows that there is an
important gap between bibliographic information on the authors and the survey results on the
researchers of the project. Thus, it is important to deepen our understanding on the usefulness andconstraints of bibliographic information as a measure of research input. Sixth, 70 % or more oflicensing and assignment were associated with the provision of know‐how. This implies that theseinventions were often put into real practice, rather than for being used just for blocking.

86This page intentionally left blank

87

REFERENCES[1] Agrawal, A., Goldfarb, A., 2008, ʺRestructuring Research: Communication costs and thedemocratization of university innovation,ʺ American Economic Review, 98, 1578–1590[2] Cohen, W., Levinthal, D. (1989). “Innovation and learning: The two faces of R&D”. The Economic
Journal, 99, 569–596.
[3] Comroe J. H. and R. D. Dripps, 1976, ʺScientific basis for the support of biomedical science,ʺ Science,
192, 105‐11[4] Jones B. F., S. Wuchy and B. Uzzi, 2008, ʺMulti‐University Research Teams: shifting impact,
geography, and stratification in science,ʺ Science, 322, November 21.
[5] Merton, R.K., 1973, The Sociology of Science: Theoretical and Empirical Investigations. University of
Chicago Press, Chicago, IL.
[6] Nagaoka Sadao and John P. Walsh, 2009, “The R&D process in the US and Japan: Major findings
from the RIETI‐Georgia Tech inventor survey,” RIETI Discussion Papers, 09‐E‐010[7] Newman M. E. J., 2006, ʺPower laws, Pareto distributions and Zipf’s lawʺ, Contemporary Physics, 46,
323–351[8] Saka A. and T. Kuwahara, 2008, ʺBenchmarking Research & Development Capacity of Japan Basedon Dynamic Alteration of Research Activity in the World,ʺ National Institute of Science andTechnology Policy, Research Material‐158, September 2008.
[9] Saka A., M. Igami and T. Kuwahara, 2010, ʺScience Map 2008,ʺ National Institute of Science andTechnology Policy, NISTEP REPORT No.139, May 2010.
[10] Stephan, P., 2010, ʺThe Economics of Science,ʺ in Hall, B.H. and N. Rosenberg (eds.), Handbook of
The Economics of Innovation, Elsevier.
[11] Stokes, D.E., 1997, Pasteur’s Quadrant: Basic Science and Technological Innovation, Brooking Institution
Press.
[12] Tomizawa H., T. Hayashi, Y. Yamashita and M. Kondo, 2006, ʺ Characteristics of excellent research
activities: Report of survey on top‐researchers’ activities and their views on effects of Japan’sscience and technology policy and R&D status,ʺ National Institute of Science and Technology
Policy, Research Material‐122, March 2006.
[13] Wuchty, S., Jones, B., Uzzi, B. (2007). “The increasing dominance of teams in the production ofknowledge”. Science, 316, 1030–1036.

88This page intentionally left blank89

Appendix 1
for Survey Methodology

This page intentionally left blank1

POPULATION AND SAMPLING: DATA SET AND IDENTIFICATION OF

SURVEY TARGETS
The unit of analysis in the Researchers Survey is a research project. The knowledge production
process was analyzed through collecting the information on research projects by using aquestionnaire to the researchers who had produced research papers resulted from them.
The ʺfocal paperʺ here is defined as a research paper that is selected. The questionnaire wasaddressed to a survey target who is usually the corresponding author or the other suitable authorof the author for responding. The ʺresearch projectʺ here is defined as a set of research activities
that had produced the focal paper.
The survey targets were asked to define the scope of their research projects that produced the
focal papers and closely related research outputs. They were also asked to maintain theconsistency between the inputs and the outputs of the research project.
The main steps of identifying survey targets were as follows:

Identification of possible focal papers:
Identification of the survey targets based on the possible focal papers; andSelection of one focal paper per survey target.

The details of the procedures will be described below.
1－1 IDENTIFICATION OF FOCAL PAPERS
1－1－1 Population
The population of the survey is the papers that had been recorded in the Web of Science
database, developed by Thomson Reuters, between 2001 and 2006 in database year and wereclassified into articles or letters and whose authors’ affiliations include an affiliation in Japan.
Most papers have been recorded into the database the same year as the publications.
The bibliographic information and number of citations used in the survey as of the end of
December 2006 were used.
The 22 fields in Essential Science Indicators of Thomson Reuters were adopted for the journalclassification of research papers. Fields of journals were identified based on the list of journals
disclosed by Thomson Reuters. The list is available on the web. The list as of April 30, 2008
was used.
We used Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI‐EXPANDED) available in National Institute of
Science and Technology Policy, which contains mainly research papers related to natural science.
Therefore, the scope of journals of social sciences covered by the database is limited. Exhibit 51
shows the number of extracted journals and selected papers by science field of journals in thisstage. There are 4.9 million papers and 9.9 thousand journals. Social sciences and Economics &Business account for only 1% of the papers and 1.8% of the journals. Exhibit 52 shows the numberof extracted papers produced in any organization in Japan by science field of journal and databaseyear. These papers produced in Japan account for 9% of the entire papers.

87

Exhibit 51 Number of journals and research papers by field (2001 – 2006)
22 ESI jorunal fields
Agricultural Sciences
Biology & Biochemistry
Chemistry
Clinical Medicine
Computer Science
Economics & BusinessEngineering
Environment/Ecology
Geosciences
Immunology
Materials Science
Mathematics
Microbiology
Molecular Biology & Genetics
Multidisciplinary
Neuroscience & Behavior
Pharmacology & Toxicology
Physics
Plant & Animal Science
Psychiatry/Psychology
Social Sciences, general
Space Science
OthersTotal
Note1:
Note2:
Note3:

Journals%, Journals

Papers%, Papers

214

2.2%

95,932

2.0%

397
544
1,488
262
39
777
228
313
83
277
312
114
230
25
209
147
319
643
109
141
50
3,028
9,949

4.0%
5.5%
15.0%
2.6%
0.4%
7.8%
2.3%
3.1%
0.8%
2.8%
3.1%
1.1%
2.3%
0.3%
2.1%
1.5%
3.2%
6.5%
1.1%
1.4%
0.5%
30.4%
100.0%

283,792
619,452
1,134,128
89,551
10,275421,182
131,131
141,290
61,009218,687
127,177
80,682
131,468
51,475
154,464
83,291
485,010
282,461
42,56941,17558,686
168,989
4,913,876

5.8%
12.6%
23.1%
1.8%
0.2%
8.6%
2.7%
2.9%
1.2%
4.5%
2.6%
1.6%
2.7%
1.0%
3.1%
1.7%
9.9%
5.7%
0.9%
0.8%
1.2%
3.4%
100.0%

Analyzed by National Institute of Science and Technology Policy based on the Web of Science of Thomson Reuters.
Fields of journals were identified based on the list of journals disclosed by Thomson Reuters. The list is available on the web(http://in‐cites.com/journal‐list/index.html). The list as of April 30, 2008 was used.
Only Articles and letters were counted.

88

Exhibit 52 Number of Japanese papers by journal field (2001 – 2006)
22 ESI jorunal fields
Agricultural Sciences
Biology & Biochemistry
Chemistry
Clinical Medicine
Computer Science
Economics & BusinessEngineering
Environment/Ecology
Geosciences
Immunology
Materials Science
Mathematics
Microbiology
Molecular Biology & Genetics
Multidisciplinary
Neuroscience & Behavior
Pharmacology & Toxicology
Physics
Plant & Animal Science
Psychiatry/Psychology
Social Sciences, general
Space Science
OthersTotal
Note1:
Note2:

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2001 2006

2001 2006 (%)

1,110

1,130

1,169

996

1,277

1,185

6,867

1.5%

5,732
10,76915,863
854
29
5,988
798
1,203
975
4,336
1,211
1,246
2,287
385
2,443
1,761
7,930
3,192
137
58
641
4,289
73,237

5,442
10,696
15,874
842
25
5,582
745
1,227
959
4,550
1,120
1,176
2,196
374
2,346
1,822
9,197
3,148
151
82
591
2,757
72,032

5,779
10,934
16,275
1,017
37
6,733
858
1,579
893
4,544
1,270
1,264
2,262
370
2,517
1,848
10,474
3,400
144
122
683
4,794
78,966

5,231
10,337
14,486
876
20
5,707
884
1,547
865
4,435
1,149
1,218
2,266
395
2,261
1,723
8,993
3,310
156
133
648
4,164
71,8005,607
11,357
16,420
1,121
38
6,204
932
1,819
884
4,516
1,162
1,331
2,300
398
2,467
1,929
11,280
3,652
195
130
635
3,070
78,724

4,949
10,09814,787
968
35
5,903
1,045
1,726
748
4,725
1,121
1,246
2,253
439
2,109
1,644
10,362
3,684
167
197
700
987
71,07832,74064,191
93,705
5,678
184
36,117
5,262
9,101
5,324
27,106
7,033
7,481
13,5642,361
14,143
10,72758,236
20,386
950
722
3,898
20,061445,837

7.3%
14.4%
21.0%
1.3%
0.0%
8.1%
1.2%
2.0%
1.2%
6.1%
1.6%
1.7%
3.0%
0.5%
3.2%
2.4%
13.1%
4.6%
0.2%
0.2%
0.9%
4.5%
100.0%

Analyzed by National Institute of Science and Technology Policy based on the Web of Science of Thomson Reuters.
Articles and letters were counted by the whole count method. The papers including at least one author affiliated with Japaneseorganization was counted.

1－1－2 Highly Cited Papers and Normal Papers

Given that the values of the papers are highly skewed so that only a few percentages ofthem command significant intellectual impact, the population was divided into two types ofsets: highly cited papers set and normal papers set.
The highly cited papers set consists of the papers whose citation frequency are ranked atbelongs to top one percent in each ESI journal field by each database year. The normal papers
set consists of the others in each science field by in each database year. Stratified sampling by
field and by year was implemented so as to avoid the effects of field and time dependences of the
backward citations.
In this report, highly cited papers are described as ʺH papersʺ and normal papers are describedas ʺN papers.ʺ

89

1－1－3 Targeted Number of Focal Papers by Science Field of Journals
All H papers were sampled as candidates of focal papers. The number of N papers sampled
is twice the number of H papers in principle. If the number of H papers in an ESI journal field A
and in a database year Y is equal to NHC(A, Y), the targeted number of the candidates of focal
papers from N paper set is 2×NHC(A, Y).
We set the minimum targeted number in the sampling of the possible focal papers. The
minimum number is 170. If 3×NHC(A, Y) is smaller than the minimum number, we sampled
2×NHC(A, Y) or more N papers until the number of papers sampled reaches to 170. “Economics& Business” and “Social Sciences, general” were merged in the sampling, because of small
number of Japanese papers in the two fields.
From Exhibit 53 to Exhibit 55, the targeted numbers of focal paper candidates by journal field
are shown. The total targeted number of focal paper candidates is 9,558.

Exhibit 53 Targeted numbers of focal paper candidates by journal field (2001 ‐ 2006)
22 ESI jorunal fields
Agricultural Sciences
Biology & Biochemistry
Chemistry
Clinical Medicine
Computer Science
Engineering
Environment/Ecology
Geosciences
Immunology
Materials Science
Mathematics
Microbiology
Molecular Biology & Genetics

Multidisciplinary
Neuroscience & Behavior
Pharmacology & Toxicology

Physics
Plant & Animal Science
Psychiatry/Psychology
Space Science
Economics & Business +Social Sciences, general

Total

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

Total

33
60
135
237
11
138
24
23
24
90
21
26
30
249
32
37
264
54
30
22

42
63
168
225
32
60
24
29
33
105
18
26
27
210
20
25
216
48
24
31

26
72
195
210
31
168
23
32
41
69
35
19
27
255
35
19
258
57
26
42

20
48
174
198
31
129
32
26
26
123
29
28
45
240
20
19
249
102
29
27

23
69
180
240
31
120
32
26
32
105
38
37
48
183
29
31
294
66
32
27

26
87
159
210
34
123
35
34
14
114
29
34
45
132
34
39
255
90
29
21

170
399
1,011
1,320
170
738
170
170
170
606
170
170
222
1,269
170
170
1,536
417
170
170

25

28

28

25

22

42

170

1,565

1,454

1,668

1,620

1,665

1,586

9,558

90

Exhibit 54 Targeted numbers of focal paper candidates by journal field (H papers, 2001 ‐ 2006)
22 ESI jorunal fields
Agricultural Sciences
Biology & Biochemistry
Chemistry
Clinical Medicine
Computer Science
Engineering
Environment/Ecology
Geosciences
Immunology
Materials Science
Mathematics
Microbiology
Molecular Biology & Genetics

Multidisciplinary
Neuroscience & Behavior
Pharmacology & Toxicology

Physics
Plant & Animal Science
Psychiatry/Psychology
Space Science
Economics & Business +Social Sciences, general

Total
Note1:
Note2:
Note3:

2001

2002
7
20
45
79
2
46
2
7
5
30
2
2
10
83
10
8
88
18
2
6

2003
10
21
56
75
9
20
2
9
8
35
1
2
9
70
6
4
72
16
0
9

2004
5
24
65
70
9
56
2
10
11
23
7
0
9
85
11
2
86
19
1
13

2005
3
16
58
66
9
43
5
8
6
41
5
3
15
80
6
2
83
34
2
8

2006
4
23
60
80
9
40
5
8
8
35
8
6
16
61
9
6
98
22
3
8

Total
5
29
53
70
10
41
6
11
2
38
5
5
15
44
11
9
85
30
2
6

34
133
337
440
48
246
22
53
40
202
28
18
74
423
53
31
512
139
10
50

1

2

2

1

0

7

13

473

436

510

494

509

484

2,906

Analyzed by National Institute of Science and Technology Policy based on the Web of Science of Thomson Reuters.
Articles and letters were counted by the whole count method. The papers including at least one author affiliated with Japaneseorganization was counted.
For fields indicated by yellow cells, the number of the randomly sampled papers was more than twice of the HC papers to make thenumber of the sample papers equals to 170.

91

Exhibit 55 Targeted numbers of focal paper candidates by journal field (N papers, 2001 ‐ 2006)
22 ESI jorunal fields

2001

Agricultural Sciences
Biology & Biochemistry
Chemistry
Clinical Medicine
Computer Science
Engineering
Environment/Ecology
Geosciences
Immunology
Materials Science
Mathematics
Microbiology

2005

2006

Total

17
32
116
132
22
86
27
18
20
82
24
25
30
160
14
17
166
68
27
19

19
46
120
160
22
80
27
18
24
70
30
31
32
122
20
25
196
44
29
19

21
58
106
140
24
82
29
23
12
76
24
29
30
88
23
30
170
60
27
15

136
266
674
880
122
492
148
117
130
404
142
152
148
846
117
139
1,024
278
160
120

24

26

26

24

22

35

157

1,092

1,018

1,158

1,126

1,156

1,102

6,652

Neuroscience & Behavior
Pharmacology & Toxicology

Physics
Plant & Animal Science
Psychiatry/Psychology
Space Science
Economics & Business +Social Sciences, general

Note3:

2004

21
48
130
140
22
112
21
22
30
46
28
19
18
170
24
17
172
38
25
29

Molecular Biology & Genetics

Total

2003

32
42
112
150
23
40
22
20
25
70
17
24
18
140
14
21
144
32
24
22

Multidisciplinary

Note1:
Note2:

2002

26
40
90
158
9
92
22
16
19
60
19
24
20
166
22
29
176
36
28
16

Analyzed by National Institute of Science and Technology Policy based on the Web of Science of Thomson Reuters.
Articles and letters were counted by the whole count method. The papers including at least one author affiliated with Japaneseorganization was counted.
For fields indicated by yellow cells, the number of the randomly sampled papers was more than twice of the HC papers to make thenumber of the sample papers equals to 170.

1－1－4 Results of the Sampling of the Possible Focal Papers
The result of the sampling of the possible focal paper was shown in Exhibit 56.
Exhibit 56 Results of the sampling of the possible focal papers
T ar geted number of

Res ults of s amplingpos s ible foc alof pos s ible foc al

H projects

2,906

2,906

N projects

6,652

7,106

Total

9,558

10,01292

1－2 IDENTIFICATION OF POSSIBLE SURVEY TARGETS BASED ON THE FOCAL PAPERS
1－2－1 Methods of selecting survey target
The most knowledgeable respondents are the researchers who had managed the research
projects producing the selected papers because the questions include many research management
issues. The response rate of Japanese scientists would be higher to a survey administered by
Japanese institutions. For this reason, the corresponding authors affiliated in institutions inJapan are the most preferred survey targets.
If the corresponding authors were not identified from the papers, ones of the authors affiliatedin institutions in Japan were selected as possible survey targets in consideration of prevalent orderof a corresponding author in authorship in each science field of journals. In the fields wheremore corresponding authors stand in the first authors rather than in the last authors, possible
survey targets were selected in the reverse order from the last authors to the first authors. In theother fields, where more corresponding authors stand in the last authors rather than in the firstauthors, possible survey targets were selected in the reverse order from the last authors to the firstauthors in the forward order from the first authors to the last authors. The same procedures wereused when the corresponding authors were affiliated in foreign counties.
For some survey targets, the contact information that can be extracted from the papers is notalways enough to identify the current address of survey targets. For example, information of theaffiliations of authors except for corresponding authors is not available in the Web of Science
database. The authors may have changed their affiliations after the submissions. Only thealphabetical spellings of the names of Japanese scientists are available. And, only the initials of
the first names are available.
To complement the information, we searched for the latest information on full names and postal
addresses and/or e‐mail addresses of the possible survey targets by using various kinds of internet
resources, such as researchers’ websites, Google Scholar, journals’ websites, PubMed, esp@cenet
and the ReaD database which is a database on researchers in Japan provided by JST. For thisprocess, it took long time and much RA resources.
1－3 SELECTION OF SURVEY TARGETS AND FOCAL PAPERS
The above‐mentioned identification procedures ascertained that the full names, addresses andaffiliations of the possible survey targets were available for 9,732 of 12,021 (97.2%) possible focal
papers in the H and N papers. Some of the 9,732 possible survey targets may be counted morethan one time. After removing the duplications, 7,652 survey targets were identified.
The interviews with researchers prior to implementing the survey suggested that when aresearcher has multiple candidate papers for the survey, they are often from the same project.
Considering also the burden on each scientist, we decided that we would choose only one focal
paper for each scientist. 6,522 of the 7,652 survey targets were matched with only one possible
focal paper. In this case, the focal papers were equal to the possible focal papers. On the other
hand, 1,130 of the 7,652 survey targets were matched with more than one possible focal paper(Exhibit 57). In this case, one focal paper was selected by using the following procedures: i) If
possible focal papers were found both in the H papers set and in the N papers set, then, ones in the
H papers set are selected; ii) After the procedure i), one out of the possible focal papers was
randomly selected as a focal paper. Consequently, 7,652 survey targets matched with 7,652 focal
93

papers were identified.
The H projects here are identified as a group that consists of the survey targets matched withthe focal papers in the H paper set. The N projects here are a group that consists of the survey
target matched with the focal papers in the N papers set. Exhibit 58 shows the number of survey
targets by science field of journals of the matched focal papers.
Exhibit 57 Distribution of the number of the focal papers per survey target
Num ber ofs urv eytargets

Num ber of the foc al papers per
s urv ey target
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10 or more
Total

Share

6,522

85.2%

764
187
75
42
23
7
5
4
23

10.0%
2.4%
1.0%
0.5%
0.3%
0.1%
0.1%
0.1%
0.3%

7,652

Exhibit 58 Number of the focal papers by field
22 ESI journal fields

Foc al papers

Agricultural Sciences

Top 1% highlyc ited papers

Norm al papers

157

32

125

Economics & Business + Social Sciences, general

337
791
1,081
160
704
147
154
113
460
161
140
165
807
153
148
1,193
375
135
120
151

98
184
296
39
197
16
42
12
122
27
13
50
269
44
22
326
98
10
23
12

239
607
785
121
507
131
112
101
338
134
127
115
538
109
126
867
277
125
97
139

Total

7,652

1,932

5,720

Biology & Biochemistry
Chemistry
Clinical Medicine
Computer Science
Engineering
Environment/Ecology
Geosciences
Immunology
Materials Science
Mathematics
Microbiology
Molecular Biology & Genetics
Multidisciplinary
Neuroscience & Behavior
Pharmacology & Toxicology
Physics
Plant & Animal Science
Psychiatry/Psychology
Space Science94

1－3－1 Affiliations of Survey targets
Exhibit 59 shows the number of survey targets by sector on the basis of the searched
information. Exhibit 60 shows the top 30 institutions where more survey targets were affiliated on
the basis of the searched information. It was found after implementing the survey that a few
survey targets were different from the original researcher who is one of authors of focal papers
because they had the same names and worked in the same field.
Exhibit 59 Number of survey targets by sector on the basis of the searched information
Num ber ofs urv eytargets

Sec tor

5,653
920
473
132
283
167
24
7,652

Domestic

Higher education institutions
Government
Business Enterprises
Private non-Profit organizations
Hospitals
Overseas
UnkownTotal
Note1:
Note2:
Note3:
Note4:
Note5:

Share
73.9%
12.0%
6.2%
1.7%
3.7%
2.2%
0.3%

The result presented here was based on the scientists’ affiliations identified by Hitotsubashi Univ. It may include miss‐identification ofscientists.
Higher education institutions include university hospitals, colleges of technology, and inter‐university research institute corporations
Government includes central and local government; and public research institutions.
Hospitals exclude university hospitals and include hospitals run by government.
The classification of sectors is different from that is used for the analysis in this report.

Exhibit 60 Top 30 institutions in terms of the number of survey targets
Nam e of ins titutions

Note1:

num ber ofs urv eytargets

Nam e of ins titutions

num ber ofs urv eytargets

University of Tokyo

493

Keio University

77

Kyoto University

343

Okayama University

76

Tohoku University

280

Kobe University

76

Osaka University

273

Kanazawa University

65

Nagoya University

203

Japan Atomic Energy Agency

60

Advanced Industrial Science and Technology

199

Nihon University

57

Kyusyu University

188

Shinshu University

56

Hokkaido University

180

Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation

55

Tokyo Institute of Technology

173

Kumamoto University

52

RIKEN

138

Waseda University

52

University of Tsukuba

108

Niigata University

47

Hiroshima University

100

University of Tokushima

43

National Institute for Materials Science88

Kinki University

42

Chiba University

84

Osaka City University

42

National Institutes of Nature Science

83

Nagasaki University

40

National Agriculture and Food Research Organization

40

The result presented here was based on the scientists’ affiliations identified by Hitotsubashi Univ. It may include miss‐identification ofscientists.

95This page intentionally left blank

96

2 QUESTIONNAIRE
The questionnaire was designed as follows. First, we prepared the draft questionnaire. We
conducted a pre‐survey on eight researchers. We interviewed them and received their feedbacks
on the design of questionnaire.
The questionnaire is composed of seven parts, each of which includes several questions.
Consequently, it consists of 39 questions. Some questions are further subdivided. Exhibit 61
shows the organization and items of the questionnaire.
Exhibit 61 Organization of the questionnaire

1.

Motivation and the other basic characteristics of the Research Project that yielded the
Focal Paper
Motivation for the Research Project that yielded the focal paper; Research process for
the Focal Paper; Research method of the research project that yielded the paper; Typesof the Outputs of the Focal Paper; Research Competition; Threat from Competition;
Importance of the Focal Paper in the Field; Importance of the Focal Paper among all the
Outputs of the Research Project2.

The Knowledge Production ProcessYour roles in the Research Project; External Knowledge Sources that Inspired the
Research Project; Research management; Use of Advanced Research Facilities,
Databases, and the Internet

3.

Research Inputs
History of the Research Project; Total research man‐months expended on the
Research Project; Research funds; Sources of Research Funds

4.

Research Team
Composition of the authors; Number of collaborating researchers, students andtechnicians, who are not the coauthors of the paper; The number of R&D personnel
specifically hired for this Project; Scope of authors; Order of Authors

5.

Research Outputs
Number of Papers Produced by the Research Project; Training of Researchers;
Follow‐up research; Projects in Collaboration with an External Organization;
Application for Patents; Internal Commercialization; Licensing or Assignment; Start‐up
Companies; Standards; Other Outputs: Research Tools

6.

Questions about yourself
Basic Questions; Family Situation; Educational Background; Research Career;
Publication of refereed paper

7.

Others
Effects on industries and on society; Your view on science and innovation;
Determinants of citation frequency

Question on the determinants of citation frequency was asked only for the survey targets in the
H projects. It was designed to appear on the last stage of the online questionnaire so that thesurvey targets do not recognize themselves as any of the groups in responding to the preceding
questions.
97

This page intentionally left blank98

3 IMPLEMENTATION OF THE SURVEY
3－1 METHODS OF IMPLEMENTING THE SURVEY
The survey was conducted in principle on line. First, we sent, to the survey targets, a letter ofasking his/her participation in this survey as well as the information on the access to the online
questionnaire, including user IDs and passwords. We also sent, to the heads of the organizations
where ten or more survey targets were identified, a letter of asking their assistance so that thesurvey targets can participate in this survey.
When the survey targets requested to reply by using a paper questionnaire, they received it.
When the survey targets found it difficult to reply by the Japanese version of the questionnaire,they received the English version of the questionnaire instead. When the survey targets
recommended other authors in the focal papers who should participate in the survey, we sent thesame letter and information to them as substitute survey targets.
Some letters were sent to wrong researchers who had similar names as right survey targets.
When this was found out, we searched the information of the right survey target and sent out theletters.

Exhibit 62 Screenshot of the survey webpage (in Japanese)993－2 BASIC TIME‐LINE OF THE SURVEY
The basic time‐line of the survey was shown below although some exceptions exist.
Survey launch: December 21, 2009
Initial due date: February 7, 2010
Reminders were sent twice (mid of Jan., mid of Feb.)
Final due date: April 11, 2010

100

4

DATA CLEANING

4－1 OUTLINES OF DATA CLEANING
There are some inaccurate responses. Before we conducted tabulation and analysis, we madethe following data cleaning to correct them:
i)
ii)
iii)
iv)

Examining consistency in questions with branches;
Substituting missing values for specific numerical items with non‐response codes;
Translating years in the Japanese era systems to years of the Christian Era;
Examining consistency between questions on conceiving the research idea, initiating the
research project, submitting a focal paper and submitting the latest paper from the project,and substituting missing values for inconsistent responses;v)
Examining consistency in number of researchers employed for the research projects withnumber of authors and numbers of other types of researchers, and substituting missing
values for inconsistent responses;vi) Examining consistency in year of birth, year of earning the highest degrees, and year ofsubmitting the first refereed paper, and substituting missing values for inconsistent
responses;vii) Encoding country name of birth into ISO 3166‐1 alpha‐2 codes;viii) Examining consistency in the shares of research funds by funding source, and substituting
missing values for inconsistent responses;ix) Checking the consistency of multiple answers for alternative questions, and substituting
missing values for inconsistent responses; andx)Examining specific numerical questions, and substituting some ʺ0ʺs for missing values.

101This page intentionally left blank102

5 CLASSIFICATIONS OF SCIENTIFIC FIELD
5－1 H PROJECTS AND N PROJECTSThe ʺH projectsʺ here is identified as the group of research projects which produced the focal
papers in the H papers set. The ʺN projectsʺ here is the group that of the research projects which
produced the focal papers in the N papers set.
5－1－1 Classifications for Scientific Field
Most results of the survey to be presented in this paper are based on 10 fields, aggregated from22 ESI journal fields. Some results are based on 3 large fields obtained by a further aggregation of
the 10 fields. The focal papers in the multidisciplinary field were re‐classified into a scientificfield based on the subject of the paper. The method is described in the following section 5.2.
Exhibit 63 shows the concordances between the classification of the 22 ESI journal fields, 10
fields, and 3 large fields.
Exhibit 63 Relation between the 22 ESI journal fields, the 10 fields, and the large fields
22 ESI journal fields

10 fields

Chemistry

1_Chemistry

Materials Science

2_Materials Science

Physics
Space Science
Computer Science

3_Physics&Space_Science

Mathematics

4_Computer
Science&Mathematics

Engineering

5_Engineering

Environment/Ecology

6_Environment/Ecology&Geosc
iencesGeosciences
Clinical Medicine
Psychiatry/Psychology
Agricultural Sciences
Plant & Animal Sciencelarge fields

Physical Sciences

7_Clinical
Medicine
Medicine&Psychiatry/Psycholog
8.1_Agricultural Sciences&Plant& Animal Science

Biology & Biochemistry
Immunology
Microbiology
Biology & Biochemistry

Life Sciences
8.2_Basic Life Sciences

Neuroscience & Behavior
Pharmacology & Toxicology
Multidisciplinary
Economics & BusinessSocial Sciences, general

Either of 22 ESI journal fields was assigned Either of 22 ESI journal fields was assigned
based on the analysis of the backward
based on the analysis of the backward
citationscitations

S_Social Sciences

5－2 FIELD CLASSIFICATION OF THE MULTIDISCIPLINARY PAPERS
The journals classified in the ʺmultidisciplinaryʺ field in the 22 ESI fields include a wide rangeof research results from life sciences to physical sciences. As shown in Exhibit 64, many focal
papers identified in the multidisciplinary were included in multidisciplinary journals such as
PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences), Nature, and Science.
To identify the relevant research field, the focal papers in the multidisciplinary field were103

re‐classified into specific science fields by the following procedures:i) Collecting the references of a focal paper in the multidisciplinary cited;ii) Identifying the science field of the journal for each cited paper;iii) Finding the most frequent science field of the journals in the classification, except for themultidisciplinary, based on science fields of journals of all the cited papers in the focal
papers; andiv) Using the most frequent science field of journals as the science field of the focal paper,
instead of the multidisciplinary.
Consequently, 794 of 807 focal papers that had originally identified in the multidisciplinary
were re‐defined as any of other 21 science fields of journals.
Exhibit 64 Journals in the multidisciplinary field and the focal papers

Jorunal nameNote1:
Note2:

Focal papers

PNAS
NATURESCIENCECHINESE SCIENCE BULLETIN
NATURWISSENSCHAFTENCURRENT SCIENCEADVANCES IN COMPLEX SYSTEMSJOURNAL OF SCIENTIFIC & INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH
IRANIAN JOURNAL OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGYTEXT, SPEECH AND DIALOGUE, PROCEEDINGSANAIS DA ACADEMIA BRASILEIRA DE CIENCIASNATURE METHODSSCIENTIFIC AMERICAN

376
225
154
19
12
6
4
3
2
2
2
1
1

Total

807

Analyzed by National Institute of Science and Technology Policy based on the Web of Science of Thomson Reuters.
Articles and letters were counted by the whole count method. The papers including at least one author affiliated with Japaneseorganization was counted.

5－3 SECTOR CLASSIFICATION FOR AFFILIATION OF RESEARCHERS
The survey asked a researcher to identify the sector of the organization with which he/she wasaffiliated when the focal paper was submitted. This sector is used for analysis by sector. The
five‐sector classification shown below is used in this report.
（1） Higher education institutions（2） Public research institutions（3） Private firms（4） Private non‐profit organisations（5） Others
The higher education institutions include universities, inter‐university research institutions andcolleges of technology. The public research institutions include national experimental andresearch institutions, independent administrative corporations, special corporations andexperimental and research institutions of local governments.

104

6 RESPONSES
6－1 RESPONSES BY GROUP AND SCIENTIFIC FIELD
Exhibit 65 shows the number of survey targets, the number of responses and the response rateby group and scientific field. This exhibit includes 13 survey targets in multidisciplinary thatremain not to be re‐classified by the procedures described in 5.2., which are excluded in analyses
by scientific field.
Of 7,662 survey targets, 2,081 responses were realized. The response rates of all the samples,the H papers and the N papers were 28%, 29% and 27%, respectively.
The response rates in chemistry, materials science, environment/ecology and geosciences, andagricultural sciences & plant & animal science were more than 30%. On the other hand, theresponse dates in clinical medicine & psychiatry/psychology was 21%. In many scientific fields,
the response rate of the H projects is the same as or slightly higher than that of the N projects,
except for basic life sciences, where the response rate of the H projects is 4 percentage points lessthan that of the N projects.
Exhibit 65 Response rate by field
All Focal Papers
Surveytargets

H papers

Responded

Response
rate

Surveytargets

N papers

Responded

Responserate(A)

Surveytargets

Responded

Responserate(B)(A) - (B)

1_Chemistry

837

257

30.7%

208

71

34.1%

629

186

29.6%

4.6%

2_Materials Science

472

142

30.1%

127

43

33.9%

345

99

28.7%

5.2%

3_Physics&Space_Science

1407

380

27.0%

400

127

31.8%

1007

253

25.1%

6.6%

4_Computer
Science&Mathematics

323

77

23.8%

66

16

24.2%

257

61

23.7%

0.5%

5_Engineering

707

206

29.1%

197

68

34.5%

510

138

27.1%

7.5%

6_Environment/Ecology&Geosci
ences

361

115

31.9%

81

30

37.0%

280

85

30.4%

6.7%

7_Clinical
Medicine&Psychiatry/Psycholog

1278

264

20.7%

325

66

20.3%

953

198

20.8%

-0.5%

8.1_Agricultural Sciences&Plant& Animal Science

597

192

32.2%

165

60

36.4%

432

132

30.6%

5.8%

8.2_Basic Life Sciences

1504

404

26.9%

351

83

23.6%

1153

321

27.8%

-4.2%

9_Multidisciplinary(*)

13

2

15.4%

0

0

-

13

2

15.4%

-

S_Social Sciences

153

42

27.5%

12

2

16.7%

141

40

28.4%

-11.7%

7,652

2,081

27.2%

1,932

566

29.3%

5,720

1,515

26.5%

2.8%

Total

Note1: (*) Papers in multidisciplinary field that could not be reclassified.

105

6－2 POSSIBLE RESPONSE BIASES
Although this survey had a relatively high response rate, the non‐response rate was more than
70%. For this reason, it is necessary to examine whether there are some major sources of
response biases.
First, there was a concern that a productive scientist with good many papers may not respondsince he/she is busy. However, we found that survey targets producing one or more highly cited
papers were more likely to respond this survey. As shown in Exhibit 65, the response rate of the
H projects was slightly higher than that of the N projects. Also, as shown in Exhibit 66, survey
targets with more than one, especially 10 or more, papers were more likely to respond thissurvey.
Second, there was a concern that a paper with multiple authors might have a low response rate.
In fact, survey targets producing focal papers written by many authors or by authors in many
countries seemed reluctant to respond this survey. As shown in Exhibit 67 エラー! 参照元が見つかりません。エラー! 参照元が見つかりません。, the response rate of survey targets producing
a focal paper written by 50 or more authors was 17%, which was significantly lower than the
average, although the survey targets accounted for only less than 1% of the samples. Also as
shown in エラー! 参照元が見つかりません。Exhibit 68, the response rate of survey targets of the
focal paper with authors in six or more countries was less than 16%. However, the response rateis stable across a significant range of the number of authors and of the number of countries except
for their extreme values.
Third, survey targets in some sectors or types of affiliations seemed unwilling to respond thesurvey. As shown in Exhibit 69, the response rates of survey targets staying in foreign countries,
working at hospitals, and affiliated in business firms were 11%, 17%, and 23%, which were lower
than the average.

106

Exhibit 66 Response rate by the number of the focal papers per survey target

Num ber of the foc al
papers per survey
targetSurveytargets

Respons es

Res ponse
rate

1

6,522

1,738

26.6%

2

764

228

29.8%

3

187

56

29.9%

4

75

23

30.7%

5

42

13

31.0%

6-9

39

11

28.2%

10-

23

12

52.2%

7,652

2,081

27.2%

Total

Exhibit 67 Response rate by the number of authors

Surveytargets

Number of authors

Total

Respons es

Res ponse
rate

1

454

122

26.9%

2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10-14
15-19
20-49
50-

876
1,166
1,157
988
731
554
397
299
683
150
126
71
7,652

267
366
334
255
186
158
104
63
152
31
31
12
2,081

30.5%
31.4%
28.9%
25.8%
25.4%
28.5%
26.2%
21.1%
22.3%
20.7%
24.6%
16.9%
27.2%

107

Exhibit 68 Response rate by the number of countries where the authors of the focal paper reside

Num ber of c ountries
where the authors of
the foc al paper reside

Surveytargets

Respons es

Res ponserate

1(Domestic)

5,290

1,484

28.1%

2
3
4
5
6-9
10-

1,665
399
114
58
74
52

453
77
32
15
12
8

27.2%
19.3%
28.1%
25.9%
16.2%
15.4%

7,652

2,081

27.2%

Total

Exhibit 69 Response rate by sector with which the survey targets are affiliated

Sec tors

Surv eytargets
5,653

1,587

28.1%

Government

920

289

31.4%

Business Enterprises

473

108

22.8%

Private non-Profit organizations

132

27

20.5%

Hospitals

283

47

16.6%

Overseas

167

19

11.4%

Unkown

24

4

16.7%

7,652

2,081

27.2%

Domestic

Higher education institutions

Total
Note1:
Note2:
Note3:
Note4:
Note5:

Res pons e
rate

Responses

The result presented here was based on the scientists’ affiliations identified by Hitotsubashi Univ. It may include miss‐identification ofscientists.
Higher education institutions include university hospitals, colleges of technology, and inter‐university research institute corporations
Government includes central and local government; and public research institutions.
Hospitals exclude university hospitals and include hospitals run by government.
The classification of sectors is different from that is used for the analysis in this report.

108

Appendix 2
Questionnaire for the Survey on the Knowledge Creation Process in ScienceThis page intentionally left blankQuestionnaire for the Survey on the Knowledge
Creation Process in Science
December 2009
Institute of Innovation Research, Hitotsubashi University
National Institute of Science and Technology Policy,
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology

YOUR CONTACT ADDRESS
If the contact address indicated is wrong or insufficient, please supply the correct information
below.

Your nameYour affiliation
Your
Section/Department
Your position title
Contact address
Email address

Would you like to have the electronic file of the summary results ofthe survey sent to the above Email address?

109

Yes

No

●
●
●

●
●
●

1 M OTIVATION AND THE OTHER BASIC CHARACTERISTICS OF THE

RESEARCH PROJECT THAT YIELDED THE FOCAL PAPER
Q1‐1

Motivation for the Research Project that yielded the focal paper
How important were the following two basic motivations for initiating the research projectthat yielded the focal paper and other closely related papers? Please rate on a scale of 1 to 5,( [1] : Totally unimportant motivation; [5]: very important motivation)
[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

●●●

●●●

●●●

●●●

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●●●

●●●

Totally
unimportant
motivation
1)

2)

Q1‐2

1)

2)
3)

Pursuit of fundamental
principles/understandings
To gain a new knowledge of theprinciples, underlying natural
phenomenon and observed facts,
through experiments and/or theoreticalanalyses.
Solving specific issues in real life
Solving practical and specific problems
such as for industrial applications.

[5]

Very
importantmotivation

Research process for the Focal Paper
Did the research project which yielded the paper proceed as initially planned? Was the main
result of the focal paper more or less significant that your initial expectations? Has the research
output found the answers to questions not originally posed (was the research output
serendipitous)?
[1](largely thesame asoriginallyplanned)

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]
(Quitedifferent
thanoriginallyplanned)

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[1]
(substantiallyLESS
significant
thanexpected)

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]
(substantiallyMORE
significant
thanexpected)

●
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Yes

No

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Research process yielding the main finding

Significance of the main finding

Has the research output found answers to questions not originally posed(was the research output serendipitous)?

110

Q1‐3

Q1‐4

Q1‐5

Research method of the research project that yielded the paper
Which of the following research methods did your research project use? If used, rate theintensity of the use on a scale of 1 to 5, (1: rarely used; 5: used very extensively)
used
[0]
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
Not
RarelyExtensively
used
used
used
●
(a) Experiment or observation
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(c) Theoretical analysis(d)Development of new experimental
methods or equipments and facilities

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Types of the Outputs in the Focal Paper
Which of the following best define the types of contributions of the focal paper? Rate on ascale of 1 to 5, (1: Not relevant at all; 5: Highly relevant)
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
Not
Highlyrelevant
relevant
at all(a) Developing a new hypothesis or theory
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theory(c) Discovering an unknown
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phenomenon/material(d) Understanding a phenomenon
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(f) Improving an existing research method(g) Creating a new function, mechanism, or
material(h) Improving on an existing function,mechanism, or material(i) Proposing a new research issue

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(j) Proposing a solution to a social issue(k) Other (Please provide the specific type of thecontribution.)

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Research Competition
Approximately how many major research teams did you recognize as your potential
competitors when you began the research project? Indicate the number of potential competitors
in Japan (i.e., the competing team with its leader being located in Japan) and outside of Japan.
None
1
2‐5
5‐10
More Unknown
than
10

1)
2)

Number of potential competitors in
Japan

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outside of Japan

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111

Q1‐6

Threat from Competition
How strongly were you and your team members concerned about the possibility that yourcompetitors would have priority over your research results? Please choose one from thefollowing.
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
Never
HardlySomewhat ConcernedVeryconcerne
concerned concernedmuchdconcerned
Level of concern

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Q1‐7

Importance of the Focal Paper in the Field
From your perspective, how important is the focal paper compared to the global researchfindings in the same field during the same period (published within a year before or after the
focal paper was published). Please select the answer below that best describes yourevaluation.
●(a) It is one of the most important papers, ranking within the top 1%.
●●●(b) It is a very important paper, ranking within the top 10%.
●●●(c) It is a relatively important paper, ranking within the top 25%.
●●●(d) It ranks within the top 50%.
●●●(e) It ranks in the bottom half among papers published around that time.
●●●(f) Other (Please provide the specific type of the contribution.)
●
●

Q1‐8

Importance of the Focal Paper among all the Outputs of the Research Project
Which of the following categories best characterize the focal paper’s position among all the
research papers from the research project? Evaluate the significance as a research output,
whether or not the papers were in line with the objective of the research project●(a) The focal paper is one of the most significant papers (one of the top 3)●●
among all the research findings of the research project.
●(b) The focal paper is a paper of relatively high significance among all the●●
research findings of the research project, although it is not one of the top 3.
(c) The focal paper is an intermediate level of significance among the●●●
research findings.
●(d) The focal paper is not a significant research finding of the research●●
project●(e) Others (Please provide the specific type of the contribution.)
●
●

112

2 T HE K NOWLEDGE P RODUCTION P ROCESS
Q2‐1Your roles in the Research Project
Please indicate which of the following characterization best describes your roles in the
management and in the implementation of the Research Project.

1)2)Managerial Role(a) A leading role in the research management, designing the research
project, organizing the research team, and/or acquiring research funds(Principal investigator or Co‐PI)(b) A member of the research management but less than that of the leader(c) No managerial role(d) Management was not necessary(e) Other(Please provide the specific type of the contribution.)Role in the Research Implementation(a) I executed the central part of the research and contributed the most to theresearch output(b) I took part in the central part of the research but my contribution was not
as substantial as the above central researcher(c) I implemented the research under the guidance of the above members(d) I contributed to the research through the provision of materials, data,
equipments, or facilities.
(e) Other (Please provide the specific type of the contribution.)

113

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Q2‐2

External Knowledge Sources that Inspired the Research Project1) How important was each of the following external knowledge sources (excluding themembers of the research team) for conceiving the research project? Rate on a scale of 1 to 5. (1:Not important at all; 5: Very important)2) If you answered “important” or “very important” in the question above, please specify thecountry where the key knowledge source, such as the key researcher, was located (choose one).
1) Knowledge source that was2) Key knowledge source (Choose one)
useful in conceiving the
research project
Was not use

1.Not Importantat all2.

3.

4.

5.Very important

Japan

USA

Gernany

FranceUK

Other EU country*

China

Other country

Was used(a) Scientific literature(Articles in journals, etc.)(b) Scientific literature(Preprints, information on
websites, those with faster
reporting than 1.)(c) Handbooks andtextbooks

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(e) Conferences,
workshops, and academic
meetings(f) Unofficial information(those from mailing lists,
etc.)(g) Availability of new
experiment facilities andequipments(h) New database (genome,
materials, etc.)(i) Colleagues in theorganization (a university,a laboratory, etc.)(j) Visiting researchers or
post‐doctoral students inthe organization(k) Past researchcollaborators(l) Competitors(m) Partners in industrial ‐academic ‐ government
alliance(n) Researchers in different
academic fields(o) Researchers withdifferent research skills(experimental researchers
for theorists)(p) Other (Pleaseprovide the specific
type of thecontribution.)114

* Other EU country: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Hungary,
Ireland. Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden

Q2‐3

3.

4.

No

1.Not effective at(a) Setting of ambitious research project goal(b) Setting of research project goals consistent with thedirections of science(c) Setting of research project goals consistent with thedirections of social development(d) Making flexible changes to goals reflecting the
progress of the research project

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theory and experiment(f) Research team from diverse academic fields

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owned by the research team(n) Improvement of computing or simulation
programs

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115

5.Very effective

2.

Yes

all

Whether used or not

Research management
Did your research team utilize the following approaches? If so, how effective were they inproducing the main research output? Rate on a scale of 1 to 5. (1: Not effective at all; 5: Veryeffective)
Contribution to themain output of theresearch project

Q2‐4

Use of Advanced Research Facilities, Databases, and the Internet
Did your research project team use advanced research facilities, databases or the participationof remote researchers using the internet? If so, how effective were they in producing the main
research output? Rate on a scale of 1 to 5, (1: Not important at all; 5: Very important). If you
wished to use them but could not, please indicate whether that strongly constrained yourresearch.
Did you
use it?

5

Yes

No

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(b) Advanced external
experimental equipment
and facilities (such as
accelerator, supercomputer, observatory,
etc.)

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If you marked Importantor Very important, pleaseprovide specificequipment/facilities
name(s) (optional).

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If you have marked
Important or Very
important, please provide
specific database name(s)(optional).

(c) The latest databases(genomes, materials, etc.),other than those forjournal/published papers

Databases

4

If you marked Importantor Very important, pleaseprovide specificequipment name(s)(optional).

(a) Advanced researchequipment and facilities(owned by your research
team)

(d)

Did the lack ofaccesssignificantly
constrain the
research?

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3

No

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2

Yes

No

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You did not use it.
Did you wish
to use it?

Yes

1

Very effective

Not effectiveat allContribution to the main
output of the research
projectofjournal/publishedpapers(e) Access to the latest
foreign and domestic
research information(information available
before it is published injournals)(f) Participation of remoteresearchers [1] using theinternet(g) other (Please provide
the specific type of thecontribution.)

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116

[1] three hours or more are required for a one‐way trip

3 R ESEARCH I NPUTS

Q3‐1

History of the Research Project
Please indicate the time lines of the research project, as follows
1) Year when the2) Year when the3) Year when the focal
project was
project was initiatedpaper was submitted
conceived
Year

Year

4) Year when the mostrecent research paper
was submitted

Year

Year

5) Has the project been completed?
If yes, whenYear

If no (on‐going), expected year ofcompletion

unknown

expected●●● yearYear

Q3‐2

Total research man‐months expended on the Research Project
Please indicate the approximate man‐months thatthe entire research team spent, from the point whenman‐months
the Research Project began to the point when themost recent research findings were submitted.
Example: If three team members worked for 24 months, 18 months, and 6 months respectively ina two‐year project, then the total is 48 man‐months. Please round your answer to an integer.

Q3‐3

Research funds
Please tell us about the amount of funds directly used for the Research Project. Indicate thenumber that best applies and please give a rough amount, if possible.
1) Please exclude faculty salary, unless the individual was hired specifically for the research
project. The research funds should include personnel costs for researchers and researchsupporters when they were hired for this project.
2) Regarding the costs for large equipment, if the equipment was purchased solely for the
project, include it as part of the research costs; otherwise exclude it from your calculation.
(a) Less than 1 million yen(b) More than 1 million yen
but not more than 10 millionyen(c) More than 10 million yen
but not more than 50 millionyen(d) More than 50 million yen
but not more than 100 millionyen(e) More than 100 million yen
but not more than 500 million
yen(f) More than 500 million yen
but not more than 1 billion yen(g) More than 1 billion yen

→ ●
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,

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118

Q3‐4

Sources of Research Funds(Please inform us about the source of research funds for the project. Indicate the approximate
percentage of each of the following sources that apply.
Type of research fund

Percentage

Internal funds
Funds of the institution that the research team members belong to (domestic
or foreign)％

External funds
External funds from central Japanese government
Center grants (such as 21st Century COE, etc.)

％

Name

Competitive research grants for projects
Grant‐in‐aid for Scientific Research％

Health and Labor Sciences Research
GrantsJapan Science and Technology Agency(JST)
New Energy and Industrial Technology
Development Organization (NEDO)Other competitive project grant from agovernment
Non‐competitive research grants (such as
national projects lead by the government)

％
Name

％

Name

％

Name

％

Name

％

External funds from local Japanese Government％

Name
External funds from foreign Government％

Name
External funds from Japanese private enterprises
Commissioned research from firms％

Collaborative research with firms％

Donations from firms

％

Other

％

Name

External funds from foreign firms％

Name
Other (such as Foundations)

％

Name
Total

1

0

0

％

＊ Regarding the research money that national universities and public research institutions received from thegovernment (excluding competitive research funds), if you cannot determine whether the funds are internal to yourinstitution or are other external funds (government), choose non‐competitive research grant if the funds are tied to
specific research subjects, and choose internal funds of your institution if they do not target a specific subject.
＊ When national research funds were allocated via a foundation, choose external funds from central Japanese
Government (including independent administrative institutions).
＊ If the headquarter of the firm is located in Japan (abroad), please identify the fund as “External funds from Japanese119(foreign) firm.

120

4 R ESEARCH T EAM
A separate sheet provides the authors of the focal paper (maximum 6). The following
questions refer to these authors and yourself.
Q4‐1

Composition of the authors
Please identify the job position; the types of their organizational affiliations; the field ofexpertise; the skill; and the country of birth of each author, at the time when the focal paper was
submitted for publication. When there are more than six authors, ones in the list have been
randomly selected, except for the first and last authors.
If

AuthorJob
position

Types oforganizatioin
al affiliations

Field ofexpertise

Skill

Country ofbirth (if not
Japan)

theauthorisyou, checkthe box

Author 1(First Author)●●●

Author 2●●●

Author 3●●●

Author 4●●●

Author 5●●●

Author 6●●●
If you are not listed above, please identify your information

Your self(1) Job position
1. Professor level (Professor, senior research scientists, senior staff scientists, managerial/executive
personnel, etc.)
2. Associate Professor level (Associate professor, associate research scientists, associate staff
scientists, etc.)
3. Assistant Professor level (Assistant professor, assistant, lecturer, research scientists, staff
scientists, etc. [excluding postdoctoral fellow])
4. Postdoctoral fellow
5. Technician
6. Ph.D. student
7. M.A. and/or undergraduate student
8. Other
9. Do not know
(2) Types of organizational affiliations
1. University, etc[1]2. Public research organization[2]3. Private firm
4. Private and non‐profit organization 5. Other
6. Do not know
[1] Universities refer to universities, joint university research institutions, and higher technicalschools.
[2] Public research institutions refer to national testing/research institutions, independentadministrative institutions, special corporations, and testing/research institutions of local
governments.
(3) Field of expertise
1. Mathematics
2. Computer science
5. Physics
6. Space science
8. Environmental studies, Ecological science
10. Psychiatric medicine, Psychology

3. Chemistry
4. Material sciences
7. Earth science
9. Clinical medicine
11. Biology,
12. Immunology
Biochemistry
13. Microbiology
14. Molecular biology, Genetics
15. Pharmaceutical science, Toxicology
16. Neuroscience, Behavioral science
17. Agriculture science
18. Botany, Zoology
19. Urban engineering
20. Electrical engineering, Electronic engineering, Information engineering
12121. Mechanical engineering
23. Material
24. Medical engineeringengineering
26. Economics, Management(4) Main Skill
1. Theoretical

Q4‐2

2. Experimental

22. Chemicalengineering
25. Environmental engineering
27. Social science

28. Do not know

3. Clinical

4. Do not know

Number of collaborating researchers, students and technicians, who are not coauthors on thepaper
Indicate the numbers of collaborating researchers, students and technicians who played asignificant role in the implementation of the project but are not co‐authors of the focal paper.
(a) Collaborating researchers(b) Graduate students(c) Undergraduate students(d) Technicians※Technicians provide technical service for the research under theguidance and direction of researchers. This does not include those
who were involved in general affairs, accounting andmiscellaneous duties in research‐supporting work.

Q4‐3

The number of R&D personnel specifically hired for this Project
Please identify the number of R&D personnel (authors of the paper
as well as cooperating researchers, students and technicians)
specifically hired for this project, whose personnel costs werecovered in Q3‐3 above. Approximate numbers will do if the exact
count is difficult.

Q4‐4

Scope of authors
Please indicate whether the following types of researchers are included among the authors.
(a) Any researcher who only supplied research materials analyzed in the■■■
research(b) Any researcher who only supplied or developed the research facilities or■■■
equipments used in the research(c) Any researcher who only supplied or developed the computer program or■■■
database used in the research(d) Any researcher who only supplied funds used in the research■■■(e) Other (Please provide the specific type of the contribution.)

122

■
■
■

Q4‐5

Order of Authors
Which of the following best describes the name order of the authors on the focal paper?
(a) Ordered by degree of the contribution of authors.

●●●(b) Alphabetical order●●●(c) Seniority (Senior author first)●●●(d) Seniority (Senior author last)●●●(e) Other (Please provide the specific type of the contribution.)

●
●
●

123

5 R ESEARCH O UTPUTS
Q5‐1
1)

Number of Papers Produced by the Research Project
Approximately, how many refereed papers (including refereed conference proceedings) did theresearch project lead to, including the focal paper itself?
Japanese

2)

EnglishOther language

Published
paper(refereed)
Please provide us a bibliography (journal name, volume, number of pages) or DOI of the threemost important papers in order of importance. If the focal paper under the survey is includedin the three, write as “focal paper” in the Journal Name box.
Year
Beginning
Journal name
Vol.
Issue
published
page
Paper
1
(or)

DOI

(or)

DOI

(or)

DOI

Paper
2

Paper
3

Q5‐2

Training of Researchers
Please inform us how many people received a masters or a PhD degree or received
Post‐Doctoral training through the research project. Approximate numbers are sufficient.
Born outside
Born in JapanJapan(a) Received a PhD degree(b) Received a masters degree(c) Post Doctoral fellows

Q5‐3
1)

Follow‐up research
Did the results from the project lead your research team to initiate a follow‐up research?
Yes

2)

No

Research followed by your research team
●
●
●
●
●
●
If the results did not lead to follow‐up research by your research team, what do you think thereason was? Indicate all answers that apply.
(a) The research project completed its mission■■■(b) Other more promising research projects were found■■■(c) We could not obtain research funds to do the follow‐up research(d) We discontinued the research because we lost the research competition to
a competitor(e) We discontinued the research, judging that the follow‐up research would
not achieve sufficient results(f) The transfer of a research team member made it impossible to do thefollow‐up research

■
■
■

124

■
■
■
■
■
■
■
■
■

■
■
■

(g) Other (Please provide the specific type of the contribution.)

Q5‐4

Q5‐5

Projects in Collaboration with an External Organization
Did the research output or the capabilities gained from the research project lead to a follow‐up
research project involving an external organization? Please specify the number of external
institutions from which your research team engaged in commissioned research, joint research or
technical cooperation. An approximate number is sufficient.
(a) Commissioned research

institutions(b) Joint research

institutions(c) Technical cooperation

institutions

Application for Patents
Yes

1)
2)

No

Did the findings from the research project lead to a patent application?
●
●
●
●
●
●
If any, write the number of applications. For PCT international applications or those not to theJapanese Patent Office (JPO), all applications from the same invention should be counted asone.
JPO application

Non‐JPO application(including PCT international
application)(a) Patent applications
3)

Please inform us of the most important patent from the project by indicating its application (orpublication or grant) number below. If it is not a patent from the Japanese Patent Office, pleaseindicate the name of the patent office.
(application or publication or grant)
Name of the patent officePublication●●●
numberGrant●●●
number
Application●●●
numberExamples：Publication number：「特開 2010‐123456」,「EP2345678(A1)」,「WO2010/012345」,「US2010/0123456」,or just a number.
Grant number：「特許 4412345」,「EP2345678(B1)」,「US7345678」,or just a number.
Application number:：「特願 2010‐123456」,「EP20101234567」,「PCT/JP/2010/123456」,「US11/123456」,or just a number.

4)
Q5‐6

Was any research team member or the organization with which he wasaffiliated the assignee (or coassignee) of the above patent?

Yes

No

●
●
●

●
●
●

Internal Commercialization
Were any research results from the research project used for a commercial purpose such as
developing or improving a product or a production process by any of your research teammembers or the institutions they belong to?
(a) Commercialized●●●(b) Not commercialized●●●(c) Don’t know

●
●
●

125

Q5‐7
1)

2)

Licensing or Sales
Were any research results from the research project licensed or sold?
(a) Licensed.

●●●(b) Sold●●●(c) Neither licensed nor sold●●●(d) Don’t know
If some research results were licensed or sold, how large (number of
employees) were the licensees or the buyers? When there were multiple
licensees or buyers, indicate all that apply. Also inform us whether they
include a startup firm, a firm five years old or younger.
250 employees or more

Size
■
■
■

●
●
●

Less than 250 employees but more than 50 employees

■
■
■

●
●
●

Less than 50 employees but more than 10 employees

■
■
■

●
●
●

■
■
■
Yes, itinvolved
provision ofknow‐how.

●●●No, it did
not involve
provision ofknow‐how.

●
●
●

●
●
●

Less than 10 employees

3)

Q5‐8
1)

2)
3)

Did the licensing or sales of the patent involve provision of theresearch team’s know‐how?

●●●Start‐up(five year
old oryounger)Start‐up Companies
Did the findings from the research project lead to a start‐up company?
A start‐up company here means a new company established based on the findingsof the research project, and does not include an existing company that is granted alicense.

No, the project did not lead to a start‐up company. If your answer is no, did
you seriously consider the possibility?
Yes, it led to a start‐up company

Yes

No

●
●
●

●
●
●

Yes

No

●
●
●

●
●
●

Name of company
Year established
Address
4)

How were the members of research team involved in the start‐up company? Check all that
apply.
(a) Research team members themselves founded the company■■■(b) Research team members assumed executive positions(c) Research team members were involved as a member of the scientificadvisory board(d) Research team members consulted for the startup (technical guidance,etc.)(e) Research team members worked as employees on a part‐time basis■■■(f) Research team members worked as an employee on a full‐time basis■■■(g) Other involvement (Please provide the specific type of the contribution.)

■
■
■

126

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■

■
■
■

(h) Research team members were not involved
5)

Q5‐9

1)

2)

Why was the start‐up company formed as a channel for commercialization?
(a) An established company has not shown interest●●●(b) Government policy favors a start‐up company●●●(c) The researchers can retain a more control right●●●(d) The researchers can expect more financial gain(e) A start‐up was likely the best way for the research result to reach themarket.
(f) Other (Please provide the specific type of the contribution.)

●
●
●

●
●
●

Standards

Did the findings of the research project lead to a
standard approved by a standards organization?

Did not lead to a
standard

Currently
discussing
standardization
based on thefindings

Did lead to a
standard

●
●
●

●
●
●

●
●
●

If it did, write down the name of the most important standard.
Standards organization (ISO, IEEE, etc.) for the cases of 2
and 3

Name (standard of XXX, etc.)

Q5‐10

●
●
●

Other Outputs: Research Tools
Did the project produce other forms of research outputs such as materials, data or tools thatare publicly accessible (for example, through a materials database or genome database)?
Indicate the types that apply from the list below and inform us the name of the material,
database or research tool. Please include the case in which your team provided an existing
database with new data.
Category of Deliverable
Name of Research Tool (optional)(a) Biological Material

→ ■
■
■

(b) Non‐biological Material

→ ■
■
■

(c) Existing or new Database

→ ■
■
■

(d) Program Software

→ ■
■
■

(e) Equipment or Device

→ ■
■
■

(f) Other research tools

→ ■
■
■

127

6 Q UESTIONS ABOUT YOURSELF
Q6‐1
1)

General Questions
Please provide the following information about yourself.
Year of birth

Year

1
Male

2)
3)

Q6‐2

9
FemaleGender●●●●●●Please indicate your organizational affiliation during the project period. If the name of theorganization changed, please indicate its current name.
Name of university,
company, research
institute, etc.
Name ofschool/department,
and group/divisionetc.
Family Situation
Marital status (at the time when the research
project started) Married?
Children (at the time when the research project
started)If yes, how old are they?
(a) up to age 5(b) age 6‐18(c) age 19 or above

128

Yes

No

●
●
●

●
●
●

●
●
●

●
●
●
Fill in the number ofchildren in thefollowing age
brackets

Q6‐3
1)

2)

Educational Background
What was your highest degree at the time you initiated the research project?
(a) Ph.D.or M.D. (incl. doctorate paper)●●●(b) Master’s degree (incl. partial completion of Ph.D.)●●●(c) Bachelor’s degree, Technical college, junior college●●●(d) Other (Please provide the specific type of the contribution.)●●●

If you answered (a) or (b), please proceed to 2). If you answered (c) or (d), please go directly to
3).
With respect to your highest degree (master’s or Ph.D.) in the above question, please tell us thefollowing(a) Year you received the degree

Year(b) Name of university at where you
received your degree and the major you
studied

University
Major

3)

In what year did you first submit a paper to a refereed journal? Write the year of submission,
regardless of whether it was accepted or not.
Year

Q6‐4

Research Career
Please inform us about your research experience at the time when you started the research
project.

1)
2)
3)
4)

Won a distinguished paper award or aconference award from an academic society
Served on an editorial board of an international
journalStayed in abroad for one year or more for study
or research.
Changed academic or research positions acrossorganizations in the preceding five years

Yes

No

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●

●
●
●

●
●
●

※This excludes taking a job after your graduation.

5)

Q6‐5

1)

Been seconded (i.e. transferred temporarily) toanother institution in the preceding five years

Publication of refereed papers
Please tell us how many refereed papers (including refereed conference proceedings) you
published during the period of 2006‐2008. Please include the co‐authored papers.
Japanese
EnglishOther language
Published paper (refereed)129

7 O THERS

Q7‐1

Effects on industries and on society
What kinds of direct or indirect effects did the results of the research project have on firms
and on society (individuals as consumers or workers)? We welcome any specific descriptions.
Example) Firms have used the method that you developed in your research project;industries used the material that you developed in your research project; etc.

Q7‐2Your view on science and innovation
Please tell us what you think are the main issues for enhancing the knowledge creation
process in science and the process of generating innovation from scientific discoveries? Your
comments will be greatly appreciated.

130