Abstract
World university rankings and their global popularity present a number of far-reaching impacts for vernacular scholarship. This article employs a multidimensional approach to analyze the ranking regime’s threat to local scholarship and knowledge construction through a study of Japanese research universities. First, local conditions that have led to the perpetuation of the world university rankings are examined. Next, the use of bibliometric indicators in performance assessment, a critical consequence of the popularization of the world university rankings, is tested against two prevailing factors in Japanese academia: the bipolar character of academic publishing and institution-centered audit. Despite high-flying idealism, the quest to improve positions in the rankings may fall short of addressing real needs of enhancing individual performance in pursuit of globally relevant research and ensuring equity among different generations of scholars. The study also points to the precarious future of vernacular scholarship, as the rankings celebrate audit culture and export its norms as well as an increasingly inward-looking propensity of Anglo-American academic circles to the rest of the world.
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Notes
- 1.
Document submitted by Minister H. Shimomura to the 7th meeting of the Industrial Competitiveness Council on Prime Minister of Japan and His Cabinet website, dated April 23, 2013: http://www.kantei.go.jp/jp/singi/keizaisaisei/skkkaigi/dai7/siryou07.pdf. The goal of placing more than ten Japanese universities in the ranking of the world’s top 100 universities in the next ten years through national university reform was included in Prime Minister Abe’s “Japan Revitalization Strategy—JAPAN is BACK,” adopted in a cabinet meeting on June 14, 2013. For a provisional English translation, see: http://www.kantei.go.jp/jp/singi/keizaisaisei/pdf/en_saikou_jpn_hon.pdf.
- 2.
See, for example, China’s “985 Project”Mohrman (2008); Ngok and Guo (2008), Korea’s “World Class University Project” Shin (2009); Kim and Nam (2007), Taiwan’s “Aiming for Top University” through the “five-year-fifty-billion” program Lo (2013); Song and Tai (2007) and Singapore’s luring of “brand name” foreign universities Sidhu (2005). Initiatives to create world-class universities usually go hand in hand with internationalization efforts, which are typically represented by goals of increasing international students and scholars, English-language publications and course offerings, among other goals.
- 3.
“Bibliometric indicator” here refers to a quantitative tool used to assess scientific publications and citations, typically in scientific journals listed on commercially available databases such as Thomson-Reuter’s Web of Science. A bibliometric indicator is the most frequently used denominator of a university’s research performance and is thus closely linked to institutional positioning in various league tables, despite repeated criticisms over misuse see, for example, Anninos (2014); Dolan (2007, pp. 25–28); van Raan (2005). Tools that measure citations and calculate journal impact factors are based predominantly on publications in English language journals and rarely acknowledge vernacular language research ouputs, especially for papers in the humanities and social sciences (see, for example, Montgomery 2013, Chap. 4).
- 4.
Panasonic is only one of many Japanese corporations that have implemented similar changes in staff hiring. According to an editorial in Nihon Keizai Shimbun, dated June 15, 2010a, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. announced a plan to increase the number of foreign nationals, who are mainly of Asian nationality, by 800 every year until their number reaches 4000, a goal expected to be reached in five years time. Positions available are for engineers, technicians, and production personnel. The company also plans to hire an average of 2000 Japanese new graduates per year, which translates to roughly a 40% reduction from the number of domestic recruits as of 2010. The article refers to other examples of leading corporations such as Toyo Engineering Corporation and Daikin Industries that likewise have increased the number of overseas recruitments for managerial or technical positions.
- 5.
The opening of new preparatory or cram schools in recent years for students who aspire to enter major American universities may be case in point (Ishikawa 2012, p. 90). Also, see a special issue of the Nikkei Business magazine (2013, October 14) titled “The world’s top universities,” featuring the story of a group of young people who chose to bypass Japanese leading universities and instead enroll with their well-known American counterparts.
- 6.
The MOF, citing the results of the THE world university rankings, claimed that only 16 Japanese universities made it within the best 400 institutions, compared with 27 in 2006, additionally pointing out and that there were only two universities (the University of Tokyo and Kyoto University) listed among the top 100. The fact that the methodology used to produce these two rankings lacks continuity was again ignored. Details and scrutiny of the debt-laden national budget (jigyo-shiwake) implemented by the former Democratic Party government was available online, as of November 21, 2011, under Working Group A2 on the Cabinet Office website, Government of Japan. The webpages concerned were subsequently removed.
- 7.
Japan’s graduate education has expanded significantly in terms of enrollment, in large part due to a government initiative launched in 1991 that aimed to double the number of doctoral degree holders. While the number of Ph.D. holders has increased, the academic job market has not offered more employment opportunities. According to Fujimura (2004), the estimated postdoctoral unemployment rates in 2002 were at least 47.1% in the humanities, social sciences and education (compared with 36.9% in science and engineering). To secure academic positions, publications in refereed international journals have become one way to gain an advantage over competitors, particularly for young scholars.
- 8.
A comparative study of the departments of economics in twelve Japanese research universities shows that the numbers of papers per faculty listed in international databases such as EconLit vary considerably from one institution to another, depending on the ratio of foreign faculty, overseas education and work experience of faculty members Yamauchi (2006, pp. E125–131).
- 9.
This does not mean, however, that domestic journals and conferences are unimportant for science communities in Japan. On the contrary, they often function as a critical outlet and “incubator” for the most cutting-edge scientific research. Most scientists the author interviewed over the years at Osaka University stressed the importance of domestic academic outlets and the use of one’s native language to nurture conceptual creativity. One senior university executive and chemistry professor, for example, stated that innovative ideas tend to be first published in domestic journals at a stage when they are “too new” and thus likely to be rejected by established journals overseas. A successful “induction period” of three to five years for a major discovery to be mainstreamed requires first a supportive home audience, the chemist stressed.
- 10.
Some 400 of the 2000 journals in total were English-language medium as of 2009. Of those 400, 84% were in the natural sciences, engineering and medicine, while the remaining 16% were in the humanities and social sciences. Although the representation of humanities journals remains fairly small, English journals in these fields have increased two-fold since 2003 MEXT (2012b, p. 40). Sheer difficulty of using a foreign language, quality control and standardization of academic terminology, shortage of staff skilled in English-language editing and publishing and resultant high costs are cited as factors contributing to the conservative number of English-language publications in general MEXT (2006, p. 71).
- 11.
The seven former imperial universities of Hokkaido, Kyoto, Kyushu, Nagoya, Osaka, Tohoku and Tokyo, and private universities of Keio and Waseda with strengths in natural science, engineering and medical disciplines are case in point.
- 12.
This is a rough estimate calculated using data compiled by Funamori (2012, slide 13), a specialist on institutional research and evaluation at the University of Tokyo, based on her analysis of Thomson Reuter’s Web of Science from 1981 to 2010. The quoted figure is derived from data provided for different academic fields in the year when their annual outputs were at their highest and thus does not reflect the share of humanities and social sciences in any given year.
- 13.
It is difficult to determine from the figures if the share of humanities and social science articles is disproportionately small in Japan. For a comparison, the share of social science articles in the United States in 2010 was 5.9% National Science Board (2012, Chap. 5, Appendix Table 5–43).
- 14.
Until the mid-2000s, the Japanese government was rather conservative in using journal impact factors and citation indices for the assessment of research, judging from a review of policy documents over the past decade and interviews with university administrators experienced in research evaluation. When MEXT released a guideline for evaluation of research and development in 2005, they in fact cautioned against the misuse of journal impact factors and clearly warned not to confuse journal impact factors with indicators of the quality of research articles MEXT (2005).
- 15.
For example, in a reputational survey of the QS World University Rankings, respondents are “invited to select features” only from their own region. Respondents to the reputational survey conducted by Thomson Reuters for the THE World University Rankings, on the other hand, choose a specific region and a narrower disciplinary field but are also able to nominate institutions from regions outside their first choice. Either way, one region is given precedence over others for primary review Ishikawa (2012). Both QS and THE reputational survey methodology pages back in 2013 to 2014 have subsequently been updated and no longer available on their websites.
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Ishikawa, M. (2021). Ranking Regime and the Future of Vernacular Scholarship. In: Welch, A., Li, J. (eds) Measuring Up in Higher Education. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-7921-9_6
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