Recently, an article titled "Japan's scientific research has fallen out of the first echelon, is this the pain of university reform?" "The article pointed out that there are three reasons why Japan is lagging behind in scientific research: first, the legalization reform of national universities; second, the reduction of scientific research funding; third, the fight for "competitive funding" has greatly occupied the time of scientific researchers to actually engage in scientific research. . This systematic deterioration of the scientific research ecosystem has led to a rapid decrease in new scientific researchers represented by doctoral students, which has in turn caused the "hollowing out" of Japanese scientific research.
If we only look at the indicators of Japanese scientific research output since the 21st century, Japanese scientific research has indeed shown a downward trend, but can we draw the conclusion that Japanese scientific research has declined? In terms of paper output alone, China is already ranked first in the world in 2022. Based on this, we can say that China's science and technology has made great progress, but can we conclude from this that China is already a world science and technology power. Obviously, it is somewhat hasty and arbitrary to directly draw this conclusion. As Masatsura Igami, director of the Japan Science and Technology Foresight and Indicators Center, pointed out: "Japan's current research environment is not ideal and is unsustainable. We must start to improve the research environment." "In this sense, the "Japan Science and Technology Indicators 2023" recently released by Japan's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology can be seen as management's dissatisfaction with Japan's technology performance and a wake-up call for the whole society, but this does not mean that Japan's technology is really Declined.
There are many perspectives to examine a country's scientific and technological strength and potential. Among them, the most important hidden indicator is scientific and technological resilience, that is, a country or region has a relatively rich knowledge reserve, stable scientific and technological investment, innovative talent team, mature organizational structure and progressive scientific research culture. The better the toughness, the less likely the technological system will break. Based on the resilience index system, Japanese technology is generally very resilient. In order to verify the author's point of view, we might as well look at the state of Japanese technology from the perspective of this most controversial technology investment (R&D).
According to official data, Japan's total R&D investment in 2021 is 18.1 trillion yen (approximately 905.3 billion yuan), and the science and technology investment intensity (R&D/GDP×100%) is 3.3%, of which 2.294 trillion yen is invested in basic research. (approximately 114.7 billion yuan), 3.4 trillion yen (approximately 170 billion yuan) in applied research, and 11.67 trillion yen (approximately 584 billion yuan) in experimental development research. Between 2000 and 2021, Japan's basic research investment accounted for an average of 12.28% of R&D, applied research investment accounted for an average of 20.44% of R&D, and experimental development research investment accounted for 62.47% of R&D. According to international practice, the R&D investment intensity of developed countries is above 2.5% on average. In the R&D investment structure, basic research, applied research and experimental development research account for an average of 15%: 20%: 65%. Based on the above data, it can be seen that the intensity and structure of Japan's science and technology investment are almost completely in line with international practices. As a reference, China's R&D investment intensity in 2022 is 2.54%, and the R&D investment structure is 6.57%: 11.3%: 82.1%. Compared with developed countries, the investment intensity has just reached the standard, but the investment structure is unreasonable, mainly reflected in the low investment intensity in basic research, while the investment in experimental development research is high.
The intensity and structure of scientific and technological investment are still superficial issues. In order to explore the resilience of the scientific and technological system, in-depth exploration is needed. We want to know the role of each part of the R&D investment structure in economic development, that is, the impact of each part of science and technology investment on gross domestic product (GDP). This test is based on the following assumptions: Since most of the results produced by basic research inputs are far away from production practice, this part of the investment will have a crowding-out effect on economic development. In other words, the more this part of the investment is, the more detrimental it will be to economic development; the output of applied research will have a crowding-out effect on economic development. The results are still in the process from scientific principles to technical principles, and this part of the investment will also have an inhibitory effect on economic development; while experimental development research is in the stage from technical principles to technological inventions and then to industrialization, which can directly bring benefits to economic development. Promoting effect. Based on this assumption, we used 22 years (2000-2021) of data from China, the United States, and Japan to do some regression analysis to see what is the status of Japan's science and technology system?
Regression analysis of 22 years of data on science and technology investment in China, the United States, and Japan shows that the correlation coefficients between the ratio of basic research to R&D and GDP are 0.18, -0.67, and 0.09 respectively. This set of data shows that basic research has a weak positive correlation with China's GDP growth, a strong negative correlation with the United States, and no correlation with Japan. This set of data well reveals the three relationships between knowledge production and economic development in today's world. Only the United States fully meets the presuppositions, while Japan's results show that the knowledge production of the entire society does not have a crowding-out effect on economic development, and the knowledge supply is at Self-sufficient state. China's results show that the supply of knowledge is insufficient and any knowledge has a positive correlation with economic development.
The correlation coefficients between the ratio of applied research to R&D and GDP in China, the United States, and Japan are -0.82, -0.49, and -0.67 respectively. This set of data shows that applied research in the three countries has an inhibitory effect on economic development, that is, it has a negative correlation. Among them, the best performance is the United States, with the smallest negative correlation, reflecting a relatively rich high-quality knowledge, followed by Japan. China's performance is poor and shows a strong negative correlation, which means that China has a shortage of high-quality knowledge and many applied research is in an ineffective idling state.
The correlation coefficients between the ratio of experimental development research to R&D and GDP in China, the United States, and Japan are 0.75, 0.73, and 0.56 respectively. This set of data shows that the experimental development research in the three countries is in line with expectations, that is, experimental development research has a strong positive correlation with economic growth. Among them, China performs best, followed by the United States, and Japan is the worst. Why is Japan’s experimental development research less positively correlated with economic growth than China and the United States? From the perspective of industrial development foundation, because the knowledge baseline of Japanese industry is relatively high, the role of experimental development research in improving industrial development is weakened; while the industrial baselines of China and the United States are slightly inferior to Japan, so the output of experimental development research The results have a greater impact on economic development. In fact, this result is easy to understand. After World War II, the United States chose Van Bush's linear model to promote scientific and technological development, that is, the path from basic research, applied research, experimental development research to industrialization; while Japan adopted the path from applied research to experimental development research, and then to industrialization. path to industrialization. This different choice of paths between long and short chains leads to the United States having an advantage at the front end of knowledge production—rich in high-quality knowledge; while Japan has an advantage at the middle end of knowledge production: corporate innovation and invention are relatively active.
From a macro perspective, there are many perspectives to examine the institutional environment of a country's science and technology development, but the core part is the four modules, which are science and technology organizations, science and technology policy-making models, science and technology funding systems, and scientific research culture. Measured from this perspective, Japan’s science and technology organizations are fixed or even somewhat rigid, its science and technology policy-making model is relatively mature, its scientific research funding intensity is relatively high, and its scientific research ecology is somewhat “salinized.” Combined with the above data analysis results, it can be well explained that Japan The reasons for the continued decline in scientific research output, but at the same time, it is also clear that Japan’s scientific research system is relatively resilient and is far from a stage of decline. The fundamental reason why Japan’s scientific research output has been unsatisfactory in recent years is that the multiple modules that make up the institutional environment work almost simultaneously, resulting in the superposition of policy consequences and resulting disharmony in the short term. This is also the most likely symptom of radical reform. For China, due to the huge scale of science and technology and the many constraints within the system, the reform of the science and technology system should adopt a gradual model to avoid the accumulation and superposition of the uncertain consequences caused by the radical model.
(Author’s affiliation: Shanghai Jiao Tong University Institute of Science History and Science Culture)