2025 Volume 29 Pages 20-27
For nearly the past two decades, it has been noted that Japan’s scientific capabilities have been in a constant decline in international comparisons, including concern about stagnation of research quality and publication output.
Furthermore, the work reform in medical health, which began in April 2024, calls for a reduction in working hours, and productivity improvements tailored to each workplace are required.
This paper examines the current status of Japan’s research capabilities comparing them with those of the United States, China, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France, focusing on the number of papers and Top 10% papers in the fields of clinical medicine and basic life sciences. We also evaluated resource efficiency calculated by R&D expenses and the number of physicians.
The results show that Japan has stagnated in each of the indicators related to papers. It was also confirmed that Japan is facing challenges in international competitiveness in terms of resource efficiency.
In response to this situation, Japan is required to take measures to revitalize its research from multiple perspectives, including publication output, number of researchers, R&D expenditures, and research hours.
In this paper, we focus on efforts to improve the efficiency of academic paper writing as an effective measure to support clinical research. In the future, we would like to support and focus on efforts through digitalization, and manage to improve the research environment.
