The Leaders' Forum on Promoting the Evolution of Academia for Knowledge Society (PEAKS) is a forum set up to support universities in Japan. The PEAKS Industry-Academia Human Resource Mobility Working Group has compiled an action plan for universities and companies to work proactively to realize a society wherein outstanding human resources obtain doctoral degrees. Doctoral degree holders will then become active in various fields and generate successive innovations. The Working Group's lead reviewer is Council for Science, Technology and Innovation (CSTI) member Yasuhiro Sato (Senior Advisor of Mizuho Financial Group, Inc.), who said, "The promotion of doctoral talents has been discussed in the past, but it has not led to results. The first step is to create use cases with the four universities and six companies that are members of the Working Group and then roll them out across PEAKS. We will also create a forum for continuing discussions and follow-up."
During the 1990s, educational policy prioritized graduate schools, and the rate of working students and women going to doctoral programs increased. However, with the collapse of the bubble economy, many companies closed or downsized their research labs and R&D departments. The number of positions for young postdocs at universities also declined. Thus, the "postdoc problem" came into being. As a result, the number of students entering doctoral programs has generally been on a declining trend since 2003. Now, Japan has fewer PhDs per capita than Europe and the United States. This is despite growing demand for creative innovation by highly specialized human resources.
The development of doctoral talents and the establishment of a system to enable them to play active roles across society have been discussed many times. Various initiatives have also been undertaken. These include the 21st Century Center Of Excellence Program, the Program for Leading Graduate Schools, and the WISE Program (Doctoral Program for World-leading Innovative & Smart Education). These programs have fostered outstanding doctoral human talents. However, support is limited to a few percent of all graduate schools, and rollout is not progressing.
Nagahiro Minato, President of Kyoto University, attributed this to the peculiarities of Japanese graduate schools: "Graduate schools in the U.S. are independent from bachelor's programs. They are special educational programs for granting degrees. In Japan, on the other hand, graduate schools have a different position under the postwar education system. They are upper-level educational programs. However, they are seen as integrally and consecutively linked to the bachelor's degree programs in the various university faculties. Therefore, the graduate program basically tracks the research interests of the course supervisor. Structural issues like these are preventing rollout."
Thus, there are many issues that needs to be addressed by the government. Meanwhile, individual companies and universities need to take concrete steps to transform themselves. The Working Group compiled its own action plan through four discussion sessions with the following members: Nobuhiro Endo, Executive Advisor of NEC Corporation; Akiyoshi Koji, Chairman of the Board of Asahi Group Holdings; Aiji Tanaka, President of Waseda University; Kazuhiro Chiba, President of Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology; Takeshi Nagano, Chairman of the Board of Tokio Marine Holdings, Inc.; Toshiaki Higashihara, Director, Executive Chairman, Representative Executive Officer of Hitachi, Ltd.; Kiyohiro Houkin, President of Hokkaido University; Nagahiro Minato, President of Kyoto University; Koichiro Watanabe, Special Advisor of the Dai-ichi Life Insurance Company, Limited; and Yasuhiro Sato, Senior Advisor of Mizuho Financial Group, Inc.
Industry should actively discuss the strategic use of doctoral talents and reflect the outcomes of these discussions in human resources policies, including recruitment activities. Discussions need to take place between management and the workplace and between Human Resources departments and business units. The appointment of PhDs to key positions, including management positions, should be promoted. Employees should be encouraged to obtain doctoral degrees, and mid-career recruitment avenues from academia should be expanded. Universities and students should have easy-to-understand information about the jobs available to doctoral talents and the skills they are expected to have. To that end, relevant job descriptions should be created and published. Universities should review their three key policies (diploma policy, curriculum policy, and admissions policy) in dialog with industry, and work to achieve a common understanding of the three policies within their organization.
The necessary reforms should be promoted in graduate schools so that all doctoral students can acquire general-purpose skills (transferable skills) in addition to knowledge in their field of specialization. Classes in differing specialized fields, project-based learning, internships, and intra-corporate research should be made compulsory. The skills acquired from these classes should be visualized. The educational system of doctoral programs should be reviewed. At least 30% of students in all doctoral programs should obtain a degree within the standard term of study. This includes students in the humanities and social sciences. Furthermore, industry-academia collaboration needs to be accelerated. To seek improvements, an industry-academia forum should be established to deepen mutual understanding of the doctoral programs and human resources.
Industry should support its employees in obtaining doctoral degrees. Universities should fast-track doctorates for employees based on their research achievements as working adults. Industry should hire doctoral talents year-round. Universities should award doctoral degrees year-round (four times a year). Companies and universities participating in the Working Group have already started various initiatives. However, several issues remain to be addressed. One of these is the positioning of the master's program. In recent years, students have started job-hunting earlier than before. Many students start their job search around the summer of their first year of master's studies. This can result in them neglecting their master's thesis research or choosing not to pursue a doctoral program.
CSTI member Hiroaki Suga (Professor at the University of Tokyo) said, "In the U.S., you can only get a job after earning a degree. Hiring someone before they get a degree is not the norm worldwide."
Sato also stated, "There is competition among companies for human resources, and it is very difficult for them to give up on that."
However, the structural issues pointed out by Minato need to be examined at the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. This will involve the revision of laws.
CSTI member Kohei Itoh (President of Keio University) said, "In Europe and the U.S., the first half of the doctoral program has a very large number of classes. Students have to take various classes and engage in them seriously. In this context, they can acquire the ability to learn, which helps them handle subsequent challenges. Japanese PhD programs are overly focused on the laboratory, which leads to students having a one-sided skill set. We need to change our thinking and reform the system."
Sato added, "We are now beginning to discuss the 7th Science, Technology, and Innovation Basic Plan. We think that graduate school reforms should be part of this."
This article has been translated by JST with permission from The Science News Ltd. (https://sci-news.co.jp/). Unauthorized reproduction of the article and photographs is prohibited.