Mechanisms of Public Funding to Universities in Major Countries and the Evidence for Improving the Research Capabilities: Implications for the efforts at national universities in Japan

Abstract

In Japan, it is said that research performance has declined markedly since the incorporation of national universities. I analyzed this situation by referring to Scopus datasets and financial data from the early 2000s. In addition, I examined the effectiveness of the evidence for strengthening Japan's research capabilities by referring to relevant data from USA, Germany, UK, Italy, Canada and Australia, and conducted survey and analysis on the mechanisms for allocating public funds. The examination was conducted in terms of (1) the scale and sources of funding, (2) disparities between universities and between research fields, (3) mechanisms for allocating public funds, and (4) research evaluation. I this paper, I presented following areas of possible improvements: (1) recognition of the importance of public funding; (2) capacity enhancement of less active research universities, (3) re-examination of the relationship between bloc funding and competitive research funding; and (4) a re-examination of the evaluation system