Japan drops to 13th place in a ranking of the top 10% of cited publications

In the fractional count of the top 10% of cited publications, Japan has been overtaken by Iran and dropped to 13th place. The National Institute of Science and Technology Policy (NISTEP) released its report Benchmarking Scientific Research 2023, and many stakeholders were shocked by the results. According to NISTEP's analysis, members of the developing country group, which includes Iran, submit their articles to different journals than those to which Japan and other countries submit their articles, and the number of articles in the top 10% from such group members may have increased thanks to internal co-citations. Even so, Japan's relative position in scientific research continues to decline, and various efforts are needed to improve this situation.

The number of articles produced by Japan has increased compared to 10 years ago. While the number of Japanese articles in the top 10% of cited articles have increased when full counting is used, the number of articles has decreased with fractional counting, and this trend is also true for the top 1% of the most cited articles. Meanwhile, the number of articles worldwide has increased significantly to more than two million per year (almost a five-fold increase from 20 years ago), and that of internationally coauthored articles has increased to 570,000 (an increase of almost 23 times in the same period). As a result, Japan, which had occupied the top position 20 years ago, has seen its international rankings decline to sixth (full count) and fifth (fractional count) in number of articles, 12th (full) and 13th (fractional) in the top 10% of the most cited articles, and 12th (both full and fractional) in the top 1%.

China, by contrast, leads the world in all article types, regardless of counting method. This survey also includes an analysis focusing on the citation structure of publications. Looking at the percentage of citations in a paper that come from the same country, China has the highest percentage at 61%, followed by the U.S., Japan, and the U.K. with 29%, 19%, and 11%, respectively. Taking into consideration the strong correlation (Q value) between the percentage of citations from own countries and the top 10% articles, it is apparent that China's own citations are increasing its number of top 10% cited articles. The high percentage of own country citations in China is likely due to its research evaluation policy that places a high value on articles published in the Science Citation Index (the database used in this analysis) and the number of citations of such articles. The Chinese government has announced the amendment of this policy in 2020, but the effects will not be visible for several years. The share of Chinese articles in Nature and Science is increasing, and China cannot be underestimated.

With regard to changes in the world's top 25 countries over the past decade, India, Australia, and Iran have moved up five, two, and seven places in the rankings, respectively. Meanwhile, the following countries have dropped in rankings by more than two places: France (by two places), Spain (by three places), the Netherlands (by two places), Switzerland (by two places), and Taiwan (by five places).

In terms of the results by field, India is showing rapid growth in chemistry, ranking third in terms of share of articles. China, Korea, and India are emerging in materials science. Previously Japan, the U.K., and France had often tied following the U.S. and Germany in the top 10% in physics. However, after the 2000s, Japan has been unable to keep up with the growth of the U.K. and France and has been overtaken by China and Italy. In computing and mathematics, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan ranked in the top 10 for the top 1% articles. In engineering, for all article types, Iran is in the top six in the top 10%. In clinical medicine, the number of Japanese articles has increased slightly, but it is still in fifth place in terms of article numbers and ranges between 9th and 13th in top articles as the total number of articles worldwide has grown extensively. 20 years ago, in the basic life sciences, Japan, the U.K., and Germany comprised the second strongest group after the U.S., but China has moved up to second place in 2010.

Looking at the citation percentiles in articles (top 1%, 5%, 10%, 20%, 30%, and 0−3 citations) in Japan, the U.K., and China, the percentage of Japanese articles in the top 5% increased from 3.7% to 4.2% over the past 20 years, while the in top 5−10%, decreased from 4.6% to 3.8%, in the top 10−20% decreased from 10.3% to 8%, and in the top 20−30% decreased from 11.4% to 3.8%. In contrast, 48.7% of Japanese articles were cited 0−3 times, a larger percentage than the world average of 43.6%.

With regard to the situation in each country, the U.S. has approximately 40% of the articles in the top 30% but has been on a downward trend since around 2016. The percentages of 0−3 citations are 38.4% for the U.S., 34.2% for the U.K., 37.6% for Germany, and 39% for France. China has shown a large percentage increase in the top 30%, while Korea has seen no significant change, although its percentage of 0−3 citations is as high as 44%.

Minister of State for Science and Technology Policy Sanae Takaichi expressed, "A strong sense of crisis" and will address the issue through the 10-trillion-yen scale University Endowment Fund for securing time for research.

In light of the results, she stated, "I have a strong sense of a crisis." She pointed out several reasons behind this crisis: a decrease in research time; the smaller scale of university enterprises in Japan compared to those abroad; the absence of an environment in which young researchers can devote themselves to research; and a decrease in the number of doctoral students as a result of difficulties with financial independence and uncertainty about their future career.

On the basis of the report 'Securing Time Devoted to Research' set forth by the Council of Science, Technology and Innovation (CSTI) in March this year, the Minister intends to take measures to achieve the goals of this report by improvements to university management through the following measures: strengthening research support by upgrading compensation for technical staff and other specialized personnel; reducing the burden of administrative and other duties; and reviewing the current assignment of roles shared among faculty members in education and research. In terms of the scale of university enterprises, certain top-level research universities will be selected and supported through the 10-trillion-yen Fund, and in parallel, a comprehensive support package for regional, distinctive core research universities will be implemented. Takaichi also highlighted the upgrading of financial support to doctoral students. She added, "The first priority is to make steady progress in these measures. We will make every effort to boost a rebound in the country's research strength."

■ The full counting and fractional counting methods
If two universities in Japan and one university in the U.S. publish a coauthored article, in the case of the full counting method, a full weight of one publication is assigned to each institute, whereas the fractional counting method assigns two thirds to Japan and one third to the U.S. With regard to the production of articles, full counting represents the degree of involvement, whereas fractional counting measures the degree of contribution.