We’ve got you covered!

We’ve found someone who has a wealth of advice for questions like these. In the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, there’s a research institute. This person is one of its members, and has written a variety of papers on subjects like university reforms and increasing the diversity of professors,¹ the influence of blank periods in resumes on career building,² and more. While doing quantitative analyses based on researcher databases and patent information, she also uses dynamic data comprised of event histories (how individual researchers make decisions). We asked her about moving between positions and career building in Japan.

Overseas Experience: Bad for Scholars’ Careers?

Over the course of two years, KURA went around three times interviewing scholars who had recently assumed a post at Kyoto University. There were more scholars from companies and overseas than we had imagined, and it seemed like everyone was trying to figure out how to first publish and build networks Japanese universities. There were also scholars who wanted to go outside of Japan to do research overseas. According to the OECD’s annual report, the ratio of Japan’s overall university student population to university students coming to Japan from overseas and going overseas from Japan is extremely low compared to other OECD countries. It appears that Japanese universities are much less diverse than those overseas. Talking to scholars, while the Japanese government seems to be trying via policies and the like to get them to acquire experience overseas, from their work on the ground, many have concerns about what’ll happen if they were to leave Japan for a period of time. In your research you’ve found that the more positions or overseas experience, the harder it is to rise up through the ranks at universities. Even so, you say that it is beneficial for researchers to go outside of Japan or move between industry, government, and academia. What’s in the background to all of this?

Fujiwara: Younger scholars have a vague fear of not having a place to which they can return, and therefore don’t want to go overseas. I think it’s important that an environment is created in which it’s okay to go overseas. However, in my research, I’ve found that overseas experience doesn’t help people survive in their careers as scholars. However, these results are by field, so I also need to look at them by university level. I also found that people who went overseas at younger ages tend to come back to Japan more than those who do so after building their career. There’s a tendency for the latter to move around a lot overseas. Since overseas society is connections-based, in the case that one cannot create these connections, it might be difficult to get oneself into a stable environment without a footing in Japan. If one wants career stability, then it seems like it’s best to go overseas using more official routes—for example, for two to three years as an undergraduate or PhD student with a local sponsor. Also, whether overseas experience is beneficial depends on the relationship between your destination and home country. Worldwide the number of countries where research experience in Japan works effectively as a brand is limited.

It seems like both leaving and coming back to Japan leads one away from a stable career.

Fujiwara: We should note that my research used data from “researchmap,” which people with an overseas orientation might not update in the first place. So there’s no guarantee that I’ve accurately captured trends. The people missing from the data set might be many of the people that we’re looking to find out about. Recently I’ve been doing research that tries to understand scholars moving between posts using the affiliations listed in Scopus articles. As my analysis proceeds there might be some new discoveries.

Performance Improves After Returning Home

Fujiwara: Other work I’ve done was research on businesspeople that used patent information. I found that their performance clearly improves the most in their career when they come back from overseas. However, there’s a tendency for those who perform well to go overseas in the first place, and since it’s these kind of people whose performance improved, we might need to keep this in mind. Also, people also might have felt that they need to work hard because they went overseas.

With regard to what happens when returning to one’s country, I think that when non-Japanese people bring the skills they learned back to their home country, there’s no guarantee that these skills will be accepted or regarded highly. I think it’s really unfortunate if people end up thinking that there’s no need for overseas experience if it won’t be recognized. It should be assessed holistically and fairly. For example, it’s possible that if there’s no one in human affairs with experience overseas, then people with overseas experience will be under-evaluated and not chosen.

People Who’ve Moved Around: How They’re Assessed

What about when it comes to careers and moving between industry, government, and academia?

Fujiwara: I’ve researched how upwardly-oriented people—those with an image that they’ll go up the ladder each time they move between industry, academia, and government—were thought of in organizations that they’re looking to move to. I didn’t examine why they came to change organizations, and there’s also the possibility that people who’ve moved around a lot are selective about the level of the place to which they’re moving, as well as that they choose places close to where they live. While for these reasons there might be other factors involved, I did find that those who move around a lot are not really regarded that highly at the organizations to which they are looking to move. I think that this result is connected to the fact that people doing the assessing tend to think more highly of those in their organization, as well as that they’re not diverse and thus tend to choose people similar to them, creating a narrow situation. Also, conversely, young people can no longer build careers that are just like those traversed by the professors in their departments. This also goes for overseas experience—with it being common today, the reason that overseas experience is necessary has changed.

The Relationship Between the Stability of Posts and Publications

What is the relationship between scholars’ careers and their research publications? Looking at materials put out by The Japan Association of National Universities,³ compared to ten years ago the total number of researchers under forty who are employed has slightly decreased (while it has slightly risen compared to ten years earlier for researchers overall, this figure has been slightly decreasing since its peak in 2013). Furthermore, the number of their posts with term limits has increased by 1.6 to 63%. This is the same as the percentage of their posts ten years ago without term limits. These numbers have switched. Currently there are very few stable posts. In your analysis, you’ve found that publishing one article yearly in the five years after appointment, as well as in the ten years between twenty and thirty years after appointment, is important for careers in academia. What kind of scholars were publishing like this? You have also suggested that during this time people should work to create stable research environments for themselves. At Kyoto University, we also analyzed article numbers by employment type and level, and found that researchers with limited-term posts tend to publish more articles. What do you think about this kind of situation in which one might have to publish in the first five years?

Fujiwara: I think we’re seeing that there’s a situation in which people have to work hard immediately before and after assuming their posts. Put conversely, this also means that things will work out if one publishes articles. We could even say that as long as one works hard before one’s post ends, then things will work out. But scholars actually want to think about what kind of research they’ll publish in the long term. There’s the possibility that despite wanting in their heart to do research that takes time, they’re made to run short distances to obtain quick results, so to speak.

However, what’s more worrisome is that scholars might end up being entirely concerned with how they will be evaluated. With regard to this issue, I think that it’s important to ensure that the people doing the assessing are doing it fairly. For example, if assessment methods for those who received tenure seem unfair, this will lead to dissatisfaction. It’s important that such selection methods will appear fair to the next generation.

Letting People Move Between Posts

Speaking overall, it seems like being able to settle where one is, on the one hand, and (as you imagine) creating an environment in which one can move freely, on the other hand, are somewhat in tension with each other. How should we think about this?

Fujiwara: It’s certainly true that my research has found that overseas experience has a negative effect. However, looking at various data, I feel that being able to move around is not meaningless. Rather, it’s becoming more important. This is similar to how each car’s performance improves when a traffic jam goes away. If the person in front of you moves, then you can as well. Preoccupied with what’s in front of you, you want to hit the brakes. But it’s necessary to have the courage to refrain from doing so. I’m thinking that in the future I’d like to look into the relationship between physical distance and career advancement. I think that instead of reducing movement between posts, there’s a need to think of going overseas as a way to open up domestic posts.

(Interviewer: Asa Nakano)