Abstract
Previous studies have suggested that the trend of academic capitalism has undermined the cooperative relationship between academic scientists in the US and other nations. Focusing on material transfer, a typical form of cooperation in natural sciences, this study examines the cooperative relationship among academic scientists in Japan. Drawing on a survey sample of 838 scientists in the fields of life sciences and materials science, this study finds that a scientist receives 2.8 requests for material transfer per year and that 4.6% of the requests are not fulfilled, on average. The results also indicate that supplier-side scientists decide whether or not to fulfill the requests on the basis of expected benefits for them (e.g., co-authorship), previous collaborative relationships with consumer-side scientists, and the likelihood of scientific competition. Although prior studies in the US have suggested that commercialism in academia discourages unconditional cooperation in material transfer, our data shows limited support with this regard. This study also shows that the use of central repositories of research tools as a means of broad dissemination is still fairly limited in Japan.
