Japan Trails Global Cutting-Edge Research By 1.5 Years

A team from the University of Tokyo and other institutions has reported that Japan lags behind global leaders by approximately one to one-and-a-half years in adopting cutting-edge research topics, according to Shimpei Torii of Mainichi Japan.

Japan's diminishing research prowess has been a subject of concern, and the findings, published in the English academic journal Scientific Reports, reveal that the country also falls behind the United States and other nations in selecting research topics.

Japan's diminishing research prowess has been a subject of concern, and the findings, published in the English academic journal Scientific Reports, reveal that the country also falls behind the United States and other nations in selecting research topics.

The researchers analyzed around 71 million papers written in English across various fields from Dutch academic publisher Elsevier's Scopus, one of the world's largest research paper databases.

By assessing the research topics of papers based on their reference lists, they examined when and how research in those areas was conducted on a country-by-country basis.

The United States consistently led in initiating research on specific topics ahead of all other countries.

In contrast, Japan trailed by an average of one to one and a half years. Britain lagged slightly behind the U.S., while Germany had a shorter time lag of several months. China, known for its rapid research growth, was behind by one to two years.

When identifying the countries at the forefront of research into cutting-edge topics, Japan ranked ninth in the 1990s, alongside top countries like the United States and the United Kingdom.

However, by 2020, Japan had fallen to 13th place, within a second group that includes China and South Korea.

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