Proceedings of the Japan Academy — History, database, and trend —

Abstract

A catalog of 13,591 papers published by the Japan Academy in three phases over a century in the Proceedings of the Imperial Academy (1913–1945), the Proceedings of the Japan Academy (1945–1977), and Proceedings of the Japan Academy, divided in Series A and B (1977–2022), is made available for public access. The catalog contains information about the authors, the title of the paper, published year, volume, issue, start page, end page, the field of sciences, and the academy member who introduced the paper in the monthly academy meeting. This article reports some analyses of the catalog and discusses the trends and background of the academies’ publications during the past century.

1. Short history of the Proceedings of the Japan Academy

The history of the Japan Academy began with the Tokyo Academy established in 1879 with seven initial members, including FUKUZAWA Yukichi (1835–1901), an educator, philosopher, writer, and entrepreneur of the early Meiji era. The Tokyo Academy, with 21 newly elected members, started its activities in monthly meetings in 1880. The number of members remained up to 26 until 1905, although the quota was 40.

In 1905, Eduard SUESS, president of the Internationale Assoziation der Akademien, asked Japan to participate in the Assoziation. To respond to this invitation, the Ministry of Education reformed the Tokyo Academy into the Imperial Academy (Teikoku Gakushiin) with a quota of 60 members in 1906. The number of members increased to 100 in 1925.¹⁾

The first issue of the Proceedings of the Imperial Academy (PIA) was published in 1912. This historic issue consists of a 70-page document defining the Imperial Academy and its roles in six chapters: I. Historical Sketch of the Imperial Academy, II. The Object of the Imperial Academy, its Constitution, the Appointment of its Members, Staff, etc., III. Work of the Imperial Academy, IV. The Imperial Academy and Foreign Scientific Bodies, V. Members and Officers of the Imperial Academy, and VI. Obituary Notices of Deceased Members.

The second to fifth issues in Volume 1 were published in 1913 and 1918, reporting the records of monthly meetings and obituaries. The following four academic papers were published in Volume 1: three in mathematics and one review paper by OTANI Ryokichi (1875–1934). OTANI’s 69-page paper describes the life and work of INO Tadataka (1745–1818), who completed the first map of Japan by walking approximately 35,000 km along major highroads and coastlines for 3,754 days in 17 years. He repeated the measurements of distances and directions of measured points and corrected their locations using the direction of the mountain tops. Latitude was calibrated by observing the stars on 1,404 nights.

Regular and systematic publishing of the PIA began in January 1926 (Volume 2) to 1945 (Volume 21). Usually, 10 issues are published every calendar year.

It has been an established tradition of the Imperial Academy, following the tradition of European national academies that one of the members of the Imperial Academy takes the role of introducing the content of accepted papers at the academy’s monthly General Meetings before publication. The authors of the papers are members of the academy, eminent scholars, and young researchers in the research communities.

The publication of PIA was suspended in March 1945, the last year of World War II, after publishing the second issue of Volume 21. In December 1947, the Imperial Academy was renamed the Japan Academy (Nippon Gakushi-in), which became subordinate to the Science Council of Japan in 1949. In 1956, the Japanese Diet passed the Academy Act, which made the academy independent of the Science Council of Japan and placed it under the authority of the Ministry of Science, Sports, and Culture (Monbusho) to accord special recognition to researchers with the most eminent records of academic and scientific achievement.

The newly formed Japan Academy got 150 quotas of lifelong members, of which 70 are for Section I (Humanities and Social Sciences) and 80 for Section II (Natural Sciences), all selected on the merits of their academic accomplishments. The primary purpose of academy is to conduct programs that contribute to the advancement of academic pursuits.

With this reformation, the academy resumed publication with the new name of the Proceedings of the Japan Academy (PJA), keeping the style of PIA. Publication of the PJA began in April 1945 (Issue 3–10, Volume 21, which was published in 1948). Restoring efforts by TSUBOI Seitaro and other members to keep up with the publishing schedule continued until 1953 for issues 8–10 of Volume 25. The PJA made regular publications until March 1977 (Issue 3 of Volume 53).

Due to a significant increase, especially in the number of submitted mathematics papers, the Japan Academy divided the proceedings into two series from April 1977: the Proceedings of the Japan Academy, Ser. A: Mathematical Sciences, abbreviated PJAA, and Proceedings of the Japan Academy, Ser. B: Physical and Biological Sciences, PJAB. The PJAA has been accepting only original papers. In contrast, the PJAB publishes original papers and “short communications” on all subjects in the natural sciences, other than mathematics. Because of the growing need to serve as a journal advocating science trends in various fields of science, and partly due to a gradual decline in the number of original papers submitted, PJAB has been accepting review papers since 2000.

In short, the actual publication style of the proceedings was reformed twice, and there were three historical phases of publications, as shown in Fig. 1. Hereafter, we refer to all collections of PIA, PJA, PJAA, and PJAB as “PJAs”.

Fig. 1.

Three phases of publishing the Proceedings of the Academy.

All papers published in PJAs are accessible free of charge on the J-STAGE website (https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/browse/pjab). All papers published in PJAA and all mathematics papers in PIA and PJA are accessible on the Project Euclid website, operated by the Cornell University Library and Duke University Press (https://projecteuclid.org/journals/proceedings-of-the-japan-academy-series-a-mathematical-sciences).

2. Catalog of proceedings papers published by the Japan Academy

We created a catalog of 13,591 papers published in the Proceedings of the Japan Academy of three phases (PJAs) during 1913–2022, which is accessible as a supplementary material attached to this paper posted at the PJAB site of J-STAGE.^*1

Table 1 shows the data of the first seven papers published in the Proceedings of the Imperial Academy, as compiled in the Catalog of Papers.

Table 1. The first seven entries of the catalog of papers published in the PJAs. Actual catalog is available in a spreadsheet form of this order

(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)			(5)
(6)		(7)		(8)	(9)	(10)		(11)
(12)	(13)	(14)	(15)	(16)	(17)	(18)	(19)	(20)
#	ID#	Field	Title of the Paper			Subtitle
Auth1		Auth2		Auth3	Auth4	Auth5		Auth6+
Year	Volume	Issue	SPage	EPage	DOI	MathRev#	Flag	Introducing Member
1	10001	Mat	The Ellipsograph of Hazama Gorobei Shigetomi
KIKUCHI Dairoku		⋯		⋯	⋯	⋯		⋯
1913	1	2	88	95	10.3792/pia/1195582264	1568199	⋯	KIKUCHI Dairoku
2	10002	Mat	On the Classes of Congruent Integers in an Algebraic Körper
TAKENOUCHI Tanzo		⋯		⋯	⋯	⋯		⋯
1914	1	4	122	128	10.3792/pia/1195582243	1568201	⋯	FUJISAWA Rikitaro
3	10003	Mat	Algebraic Means
FUJISAWA Rikitaro		⋯		⋯	⋯	⋯		⋯
1918	1	5	159	170	10.3792/pia/1195582221	1568202	⋯	FUJISAWA Rikitaro
4	10004	Ear	A Brief Account of the Life and Work of Tadataka INO
OTANI Ryokichi		⋯		⋯	⋯	⋯		⋯
1918	1	5	171	239	10.2183/pjab1912.1.171	⋯	⋯	⋯
5	10005	Mat	Approximation of an Irrational Number by Rational Numbers
FUJIWARA Matsusaburô*		⋯		⋯	⋯	⋯		⋯
1926	2	1	1	3	10.3792/pia/1195582179	1568203	⋯	FUJIWARA Matsusaburo
6	10006	Ast	Elements of the Orbit of Orkisz’ Comet (1925c)
KINOSHITA Kunisuke		ISHII Shigeo		⋯	⋯	⋯		⋯
1926	2	1	4	4	10.2183/pjab1912.2.4	⋯	⋯	HIRAYAMA Shin
7	10007	Che	The System, Water and the Nitrates and Sulphates of Ammonium and Potassium, at 25°
OSAKA Yukichi		INOUYE Ryohei		⋯	⋯	⋯		⋯
1926	2	1	5	6	10.2183/pjab1912.2.5	⋯	⋯	SAKURAI Joji

*Refer to the table notes #6 and #11 of Table 2 for spelling accents of authors.

Table 2 shows the explanation of the 20 columns of information for each paper in the catalog spreadsheet, as shown in Table 1.

Table 2. Description of Columns in the Catalog of Papers published in the proceedings, PIA, PJA, PJAA, and PJAB

#	Description	Format§1	Note
1	#	I5	§2
2	Paper ID #	I6	§3
3	Science Field	T4	§4
4	Paper Title	T357	§5
5	Subtitle	T241	§5
6	Author 1	T36	§6
7	Author 2	T33	§6
8	Author 3	T28	§6
9	Author 4	T23	§6
10	Author 5	T24	§6
11	Author 6+	T1339	§6,§7
12	Year	I5	⋯
13	Volume	I4	⋯
14	Issue	T31	§8
15	Start Page	I5	⋯
16	End Page	I5	⋯
17	DOI	T38	⋯
18	Math Review #	T7	§9
19	Review Flag	T2	§10
20	Introducing Member	T21	§11

^§1Data type, I (for integer) or T (for text), and the maximum number of bytes.

^§2Sequential number.

^§3Paper ID number 1xxxx for PIA (1913–1944), 2xxxx for PJA (1945–1977.3), 3xxxx for PJAB (1977.4–2022), and 4xxxx for PJAA (1977.4–2022).

^§4Agr: Agriculture, Ast: Astronomy, Bio: Biology, Che: Chemistry, Ear: Earth Sciences, Eng: Engineering, Hum: Humanities, Mat: Mathematics, Med: Medicine and Pharmacy, Phy: Physics.

^§5The type setting of paper titles with mathematical symbols has not been completely reproduced.

^§6Author names with spelling accents, as shown in the papers. The most frequently employed spelling, or spelling employed in the later phase of authors’ activities, is shown here for authors who have used different versions of spelling.

^§7Authors, the 6th and rest, are given here.

^§8Jointly published issues are denoted, for instance, 3–5. Also, there are some supplementary issues in 1970s. Issue numbers of PJA published in 1977 are from 1 to 3. Issue numbers of PJAA and PJAB published from April to December 1977 were given 1* to 7* instead of 4–10.

^§9Math Review Number.

^§10R: Flag for a review paper.

^§11Academy member names who communicated the paper at the monthly Japan Academy meeting. Names without spelling accents are presented here.

A chronological sequential ID number is assigned for each of the papers in column (2) in the form: 10001-12744 for PIA (1913–1944), 20001-25276 for PJA (1945–1977.3), 30001-32645 for PJAB (1977.4–2022), and 40001-42926 for PJAA (1977.4–2022), respectively. Additionally, unique DOI information is assigned for each paper. For papers in PJAA, the Math Review Number is also given.

Each volume typically has 10 issues. However, there are some cases in which several issues have been jointly published for distinct reasons. In addition, there are supplementary issues where necessary (see Note 8 of Table 2). Section II (Pure Sciences and Their Applications) of the Japan Academy has four Subsections: Pure Sciences (Fourth Subsection), Engineering (Fifth Subsection), Agriculture (Sixth Subsection), and Medicine, Pharmaceutics, and Dentistry (Seventh Subsection). Proceedings papers of the Pure Sciences are further categorized into six fields of natural science. By adding the 10th field of Humanities of Section I (Humanities and Social Sciences), each paper is classified in column (3) as one of the following 10 science fields: agriculture (Agr), astronomy (Ast), biology (Bio), chemistry (Che), earth sciences (Ear), engineering (Eng), humanities (Hum), mathematics (Mat), medicine and pharmacy (Med), and physics (Phy). The assignment of each paper to these 10 fields is based on the context of the paper or, in some cases, on the field where the introducing member (Column 20) of the academy belongs.

Some authors and members of the academy used different versions of spelling for their names during their academic career. To establish the identification of the same person, different versions of spelling were rectified to a common spelling by adopting the version used in the later stage or used most frequently during his/her academic career.

Note that some mathematical notations of the titles of the papers are not complete in the spreadsheet for technical reasons.

3. Statistics and trend analysis

3.1. Member statistics.

Figure 2 shows the variation in the member quota and actual number of members for each year from 1879 to 2022. The growth of the average age of the members and lifespan for Japanese men are also plotted in the figure. The average age of the members increased from approximately 60 years (in 1900) to 82 years (in 2020), while the average lifespan of Japanese men increased from approximately 44 (in 1900) to 82 (in 2022). In the first 50 years, members of the academy were on average 12–19 years senior than the average lifespan of Japanese men.

Fig. 2.

Increase in the member quota of the academy and the actual annual number of members are plotted with the scale shown on the right side. Note that the initial member quota until 1905 was 40; however, the actual number never reached this quota. The number of member quotas increased to 60, 100, and 150 in 1905, 1925, and 1947, respectively. In addition, the yearly change in the average age of the academy members and average life span of Japanese males are shown with a scale on the left side.

One reason for this discrepancy could be due to the fact that only well-established senior living scholars were elected as academy members. Such a striking age difference between the mean age of academy members and the average lifespan of Japanese men; however, gradually diminished in the second half of the 20th century and practically disappeared by 2000.

3.2. Female members.

The Imperial Academy began with only the male members. The first female Japan Academy member elected in 1995 in Section I (Humanities and Social Sciences) was NAKANE Chie (1926–2021), who conducted systematic anthropological studies of family/social structure in Japan and other Asian countries.

No female members were elected to Section II (Natural Sciences) until 2020. So far, only six female members have been elected among the 854 members elected over a century. In 2023, there are five female members among the 130 members, 3.8%.

The Japan Academy has awarded the Japan Academy Prize to up to nine scholars in recent years. During the Imperial Academy period, only 8.2% of 171 members received this prize. For the Japan Academy period, 13% of 320 (Section I) and 63% of 363 (Section II) members received a prize before their election as academy members. Again, there were only 10 female scholars among the 794 winners of the Japan Academy Prize over its century-long history.

3.3. Paper number statistics.

Figure 3 shows the annual variations in the number of papers published in mathematics and other fields of science. Annual variations in the total number of papers and average number of pages per paper are also shown. There are at least three distinctive trends as follows: (1) a clear decline in the number of papers due to World War II (1945–1950), (2) fairly rapid postwar recovery (1950–1985) probably due to the increase in mathematics papers and member quota, and (3) gradual decline (1985–2022) due to increasing dedicated journals in each science field (see Table 4). Another clear trend is the conspicuous increase in the average number of pages per paper by adopting review articles in PJAB in the 21st century.

Fig. 3.

Annual variation in the number of proceedings papers published in mathematics (red line), all other fields of science (broken blue line), and the total number of papers (black line) with the number scale shown on the left side. The annual change in the number of pages per paper is also plotted with a scale on the right side.

An outstanding peak of the average page in 1918 was due to OTANI’s 69-page paper on the life and work of INO Tadataka, described before.

3.4. Field statistics.

Table 3 shows the number of published papers in each field of science and its share in all publications. The number of papers in mathematics, 6489, is by far the largest, accounting for 47.7% of all publications. Currently, the Japan Academy has four members in mathematics and only 5% of the 80 members in Section II. This clearly shows the significant burden on mathematics members for their duties in serving as editors of PJAA and introducing accepted mathematical papers in the monthly Japan Academy meetings. In addition to mathematics, there are more than 1,000 papers in three fields: (1) medicine and pharmacy, (2) biology, and (3) earth sciences.

Table 3. Number of published papers in Fields of Sciences

#	Field	Number of Papers	Fraction (%)
1	Mathematics	6489	47.7
2	Medicine/Pharmacy	2128	15.7
3	Biology	1598	11.8
4	Earth Sciences	1297	9.5
5	Chemistry	642	4.7
6	Agriculture	565	4.2
7	Physics	362	2.7
8	Engineering	261	1.9
9	Astronomy	191	1.4
10	Humanities	58	0.4
	Total	13591	100.0

Figure 4 shows the decadal variation of number of papers in each science field, normalized to its average publication rate over the century. A few trends can be observed from this plot.

Fig. 4.

Decadal variations in publishing rate in ten science fields normalized to the average rate over the century. Note that the statistical significance is low for the 1920s and 2020s and in fields in which the total fractional share is less than 2.5% (broken lines) because of the smaller number of papers.

(1) Note that high rate peaks in each field can be associated with some particular academy members who were eager to deliver papers to the academy proceedings. The number of papers increased when ardent academy members encouraged the publication of papers in their fields.

(2) The thick orange line, for instance, shows a distinct decrease in the number of papers in physics during 1955–1995. In the first half of the 20th century, NAGAOKA Hantaro and TERADA Torahiko contributed much in physics. In 1946, the physics community established two new journals. Physicists, including the Japan Academy members, concentrated on these journals rather than on the PJA. The steep rise in the number of physics papers after 2000 is due to the effort of YAMAZAKI Toshimitsu to restore publications in physics. Similar increases and decreases can be observed in other fields.

(3) Rapid decline of papers in Humanities by 1950s is due to the fact that the majority of papers in Section I were published in the Transactions of the Japan Academy in Japanese since 1942, except for some early papers published in English in the Imperial Academy era.

3.5. Foundation of societies in each science field.

Currently, there are hundreds of academic societies in Japan. Table 4 lists some academic societies that actively publish international scientific journals in their specific science fields. Note that this list is not exhaustive, but shows the history of foundation and publishing activity for some representative societies. The contribution and commitment of Imperial/Japan Academy members in founding these academic societies was confirmed for 19 of the 25 societies listed in Table 4.

Table 4. Academic societies established in various fields of sciences

Current Name of the Academic Society	Year#1	Current Title of International Journal	1st#2 Year	Flag#3	Papers#4	Members	Note
The Japan Academy	1879	Proceedings of the Japan Academy	1912	$\surd $	46	130
The Mathematical Society of Japan	1877	Journal of the Mathematical Society of Japan	1947	$\surd $	45	5,003	#5
The Physical Society of Japan	1877	Journal of the Physical Society of Japan Progress of Theoretical and Experimental Physics	1946 1946	$\surd $	345 191	16,000	#5
The Chemical Society of Japan	1878	Bulletin of the Chemical Society of Japan Chemistry Letters	1926 1972	$\surd $	213 291	22,955
The Seismological Society of Japan	1880	Earth, Planets and Space	1949	$\surd $	192	1,658	#6
The Botanical Society of Japan	1882	Journal of Plant Research	1887	$\surd $	58	1,900
The Zoological Society of Japan	1885	Zoological Science	1884	$\surd $	61	1,975
The Japanese Society of Veterinary Science	1885	The Journal of Veterinary Medical Science	1997	—	258	4,503
The Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan	1888	Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Engineering	2006	—	202	18,569
Japan Pediatric Society	1896	Pediatrics International	1958	—	581	23,000
Japan Surgical Society	1899	Surgery Today	1970	—	209	40,673
The Japanese Society of Internal Medicine	1903	Internal Medicine	1962	$\surd $	700	119,322
The Astronomical Society of Japan	1908	Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan	1949	$\surd $	102	3,358
The Japanese Forest Society	1914	Journal of Forest Research	1996	—	57	2,220
The Physiological Society of Japan	1922	The Journal of Physiological Sciences	1950	$\surd $	22	2,717
Japan Society for Bioscience, Biotechnology, and Agrochemistry	1924	Bioscience, Biotechnology, and Biochemistry	1924	$\surd $	204	9,171
The Japanese Biochemical Society	1925	The Journal of Biochemistry	1922	$\surd $	157	7,603
The Japanese Association for Infectious Diseases	1926	Journal of Infection and Chemotherapy	1995	$\surd $	314	10,745	#7
The Japanese Pharmacological Society	1926	Journal of Pharmacological Sciences	1951	$\surd $	108	3,805
The Japanese Society of Fisheries Science	1932	Fisheries Science	1994	—	63	2,815
The Japan Institute of Metals and Materials	1937	Materials Transactions	1960	$\surd $	275	4,554
The Japanese Cancer Association	1941	Cancer Science	1959	$\surd $	413	14,000
The Japan Society of Applied Physics	1946	Japanese Journal of Applied Physics	1962	$\surd $	871	17,556	#8
Japan Society for Immunology	1970	International Immunology	1989	$\surd $	53	3,400
The Molecular Biology Society of Japan	1978	Genes to Cells	1996	$\surd $	46	12,000
Japan Geoscience Union	2005	Progress in Earth and Planetary Sciences	2014	$\surd $	73	8,882

^#1The year of society foundation.

^#2The first year of English journal publication.

^#3$\surd $: Confirmed commitment of Japan Academy member(s) to the foundation of the Society.

^#4Number of papers published in 2022.

^#5Started as Tokyo Sugaku Kaisha in 1877, it founded the Japan Mathematical and Physical Society in 1918, and separated into the Mathematical Society and the Physical Society in 1946.

^#6Published jointly with four other academic societies in volcanological science, geodetic science, planetary sciences, and geomagnetism and planetary space sciences. The Journal of Geomagnetism and Geoelectricity, as a predecessor, was first published in 1949.

^#7Published jointly with the Japanese Society of Chemotherapy and Japanese Society for Infection, Prevention, and Control.

^#8Published jointly with Physical Society of Japan until 2000.

Although the first paper on PIA was published in 1913, regular systematic publishing of papers in PIA started in 1926. It is remarkable that zoological and botanical societies began publishing papers in English in the 1880s. Three societies in biochemistry (1922), agricultural science (1924), and chemistry (1926) in Table 4, started publishing international journals in nearly the same period as PIA. After the World War II, eight additional international journals were established by societies in physics (1946), mathematics (1947), astronomy (1949), earth science (1949), pharmacology (1951), pediatrics (1958), cancer study (1959), and metal science (1960), during 1946–1960. The societies for surgery (1970) and immunology (1989) began publications in the next two decades. In the last decade of the 20th century, five new international journals were founded as follows: fisheries science (1994), infectious disease science (1995), molecular biology (1996), forest science (1996), and veterinary science (1997).

The establishment of these journals in each science field clearly encouraged members belonging to those science communities to submit their research papers to dedicated journals. The necessity and incentive to submit papers in PJAs have decreased despite their high recognition.

3.6. Foreign authors.

Table 5 shows the proportion of papers with a foreigner as the first author in each field of science. This can be regarded as a measure of international contributions to the Japan Academy publication. So far, 92% of the papers in PJAs were written by domestic first authors. The foreign author paper fraction increased during the three phases of academy publication: 0.8% for PIA (before 1945), 5.0% for PJA (from 1946 to 1976, including mathematics papers), 20.5% for PJAA (from 1977 onward), and 4.8% for PJAB (from 1977 onward). The number fraction of papers with a foreigner as the first author is again the largest in the field of mathematics, reaching 13.2% over the century, showing the borderless nature of the mathematics field. Other fields with large international contributions to the academic publications are agriculture (5.8%) and earth sciences (3.5%).

Table 5. Fraction of papers written by foreign authors

#	Field	# Papers	# Foreign 1st Author	Foreign Fraction
1	Mathematics	6489	857	13.2
2	Agriculture	565	33	5.8
3	Earth Science	1297	45	3.5
4	Medical Science	2128	38	1.8
5	Chemistry	642	107	1.6
6	Biology	1598	19	1.2
7	Engineering	261	3	1.1
8	Physics	362	2	0.5
9	Astronomy	191	1	0.5
10	Humanities	58	0	0.0
	Total	13591	1008	7.4

3.7. First authors.

The rule of authorship ordering for a paper is not universal. Figure 5 shows the alphabetical distribution of the family name initials of the first author of all the papers published in PJAs. For papers with two authors, the chance of having them in alphabetical order is 0.5 if the distribution of the first authors’ initial is uniform. However, for the distribution shown in this figure, such a probability for random distribution would be 0.43.

Fig. 5.

Alphabet distribution of first authors of all the papers in PJAs.

Table 6 shows the number of papers with two authors in alphabetical order or the other way around for each science field. The number of papers with more than four authors where the authors are in either in alphabetical order or not are also shown.

Table 6. Ordering authors of papers

Field	2ABC	2NonABC	4+ABC	4+NonABC
Mat	773	200	4	22
Ast	7	11	0	3
Agr	8	11	0	84
Bio	178	248	7	228
Che	118	99	4	107
Ear	162	228	1	100
Eng	36	33	0	15
Hum	4	1	0	0
Med	279	274	10	587
Phy	42	83	0	15
Total (except Mat)	834	988	22	1139
Total	1607	1188	26	1161

The mathematics field shows a clear prevalence in alphabetical order for PJAA papers with two authors. However, for papers with more than four authors, the alphabetical ordering does not apply, even in PJAA. Mathematics society adopts an alphabetical order principle but not in a complete sense.

Actualy, the fraction of papers with two authors in alphabetical order in all other fields except mathematics is 834/1822 = 0.458 ± 0.016, statistically consistent with random distribution. There is no evidence that any science field other than mathematics employs alphabetical order scheme in authorship.

It is known that in high-energy particle physics projects, some papers with more than hundred coauthors have their authors in alphabetical order, but there is no such paper in PJAs. It has been customary, and especially true in the early years that the first author deserves the credit of the content.

Table 7 lists the top 10 first authors in the number statistics of the PJAs. Many active members of the Japan Academy wrote original papers, and not just introduced papers written by other authors. YABE Hisakatsu (1878–1969) was an earth scientist at Tohoku University. He is known for his tectonic studies of Japan and found the Itoigawa–Shizuoka Tectonic Line in 1918. He also found that the Japanese archipelago separated from the continent approximately one million years ago. He is also known for his studies on ammonite fossils.²⁾ YABE published 127 papers in the PJAs.

Table 7. Top 10 first authors

#	Member	Field	1st§1 Auth	All§2 Auth
1	YABE Hisakatsu	Ear	127	127
2	KOBAYASHI Teiichi	Ear	125	125
3	NAGAOKA Hantaro	Phy/Ear	122	122
4	ISEKI Kiyoshi*	Mat	118	127
5	KOMATSU Yusaku*	Mat/Med	96	96
6	YOSIDA Tosihide*	Bio	78	100
7	NOZOE Tetsuo	Che	77	80
8	OKA Asajiro	Bio	77	77
9	IMAMURA Akitsune	Ear	71	71
10	TERADA Torahiko	Phy/Ear	62	62

^§1Number of 1st author papers.

^§2Number of all authored papers.

*Not a member of the Japan Academy.

Seven of the top 10 first authors were members of the Japan Academy. ISEKI Kiyoshi and YOSIDA Tosihide, not members of the Japan Academy, made significant contributions to publishing 119 mathematics and 78 biology papers, respectively.

3.8. Introducing members.

The tradition of introducing the content of accepted papers for publication in the monthly meeting of the academy continued over the century, even during the World War II and COVID-19 period.

Table 8 shows an outstanding list of the top 10 mathematics members who introduced the largest number of mathematics papers in the monthly meetings.

Table 8. Top 10 members introducing mathematics papers

#	Introducing Member	Number of Papers Introduced
1	KUNUGI Kinjiro	1729
2	YOSIDA Kosaku	896
3	IYANAGA Shokichi	799
4	KODAIRA Kunihiko	524
5	SUETSUNA Joichi	475
6	HIRONAKA Heisuke	313
7	TAKAGI Teiji	286
8	SHODA Kenjiro	274
9	MORI Shigefumi	259
10	FUJIWARA Matsusaburo	204

KUNUGI Kinjiro (1903–1975) of Osaka University, registered as KUNUGUI in his early career, studied the general topology and functional analysis. He is known to find the Beurling–Kunugi theorem on sets of accumulation points.^3),4) His contributions to PJAA were exceptional. He introduced 1,729 mathematics papers, not limited to his own research field, during 1950–1975 at monthly meetings of the academy. Although the actual refereeing processes of papers were carried out by other mathematics experts in the subject, introducing such many papers in mathematics must have been a very demanding job and indicate his passion in doing so.

Not only him but every mathematics member of the Japan Academy has contributed much to arranging communications with reviewers and the authors. Reporting the context of the mathematics paper accepted for publication in the proceedings of the monthly meetings adds additional difficult tasks considering the wide range of research covered in mathematics.

Table 9 shows the corresponding top 10 list of academy members in all fields other than mathematics who introduced the largest number of papers. MAKINO Sajiro (1906–1989) of Hokkaido University was a cytogeneticist and developed a microscopic observation method for chromosomes. He studied human and animal chromosomes and identified chromosomal aberrations. He also conducted cytogenetic studies cancer cells.⁵⁾ MAKINO introduced 487 papers in biology and medicine fields.

Table 9. Top 10 members introducing papers except in mathematics

#	Member	Field	Number of Readings
1	MAKINO Sajiro	Bio	487
2	FURUHATA Tanemoto	Med	399
3	YABE Hisakatsu	Ear	286
4	MAJIMA Rikō	Che	242
5	EBASHI Setsuro	Med	220
6	KOBAYASHI Teiichi	Ear	195
7	NAGAOKA Hantaro	Phy	165
8	TERADA Torahiko	Phy	163
9	KATSUKI Yasuji	Med	151
10	SUZUKI Umetaro	Agr	145

3.9. Most read papers.

The analysis of the scientific impact of each paper is beyond the scope of this study; however, the following statistics are worth noting. The Project Euclid announced the five best PJAA mathematics papers most read by March 2023, as shown in Table 10. ISEKI Kiyoshi of Kobe University and his group wrote 25 papers in a series under a common title.

Table 10. Top 5 most read mathematics articles as of March 2023

#	Title of the Paper	Author	Year	ID#
1	On axiom systems of propositional calculi, XIV	IMAI Yasuyuki and ISEKI Kiyoshi	1966	22904
2	Charaktere linearer Gruppen	KAWADA Yukiyosi	1939	12010
3	Pseudo quasi metric spaces	KIM Yong-woon	1968	23617
4	A construction for idempotent binary relations	SCHEIN B. M.	1970	23908
5	On metrizability of M-spaces	OKUYAMA Akihiro	1964	22537

Table 11 shows the top 10 most viewed PJAB papers in March 2023. Note that, in these statistics, the read count from 2004 is taken, but for papers published before Volume 78, the count from June 2016 is taken. The paper by NAKAMURA et al.⁶⁾ the early findings of the interplanetary Hayabusa-2 mission to a minor planet Ryugu to retrieve its surface material, had the largest recent visibility.

Table 11. Top 10 most read articles of PJAB as of March 2023

#	Title of Paper	Authors	ID#
1	On the origin and evolution of the asteroid Ryugu: A comprehensive geochemical perspective	NAKAMURA Eizo, KOBAYASHI Katsura, TANAKA Ryoji, KUNIHIRO Tak, KITAGAWA Hitosi et al.	32633
2	Ivermectin, “Wonder drug” from Japan: the human use perspective	CRUMP Andy and OMURA Satoshi	32218
3	Efficient induction of transgene-free human pluripotent stem cells using a vector based on Sendai virus, an RNA virus that does not integrate into the host genome	FUSAKI Noemi, BAN Hiroshi, NISHIYAMA Akiyo, SAEKI Koichi, and HASEGAWA Mamoru	32136
4	Internal radiocesium contamination of adults and children in Fukushima 7 to 20 months after the Fukushima NPP accident as measured by extensive whole-body-counter surveys	HAYANO Ryogo, TSUBOKURA Masaharu, MIYAZAKI Makoto, SATOU Hideo, SATO Katsumi et al.	32309
5	Favipiravir (T-705), a broad spectrum inhibitor of viral RNA	FURUTA Yousuke, KOMENO Takashi, and NAKAMURA Takaaki	32459
6	Transforming growth factor-β signaling in epithelial-mesenchymal transition and progression of cancer	MIYAZONO Kohei	32133
7	Pathogen recognition by innate immunity and its signaling	AKIRA Shizuo	32117
8	Novel plasma biomarker surrogating cerebral deposition	KANEKO Naoki, NAKAMURA Akinori, WASHIMI Yukihiko, KATO Takashi, SAKURAI Takashi et al.	32356
9	Organoborane coupling reaction (Suzuki coupling)	SUZUKI Akira	31949
10	Tetrodtoxin —A brief history—	NARAHASHI Toshio	32085

4. Discussion

4.1. Wide coverage of the science fields.

In the early 20th century, many scientific communities, especially in developing countries, such as Japan, could not publish journals relevant to each science field. In this respect, PIA has served as an excellent platform for publishing papers in all science fields in Japan and in foreign developing countries.

During our study of historic papers in astronomy published in the PIA, we found that some papers published by KIMURA Hisashi, for instance,⁷⁾ were missing at the time of 2019 from the SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS), which is one of the best-used digital library portals for researchers in astronomy and astrophysics, operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) under a NASA grant.

We found that this was because PIA covered all fields of science, and it was impractical for the ADS team to select relevant papers of PIA to be included in the ADS. To address this problem, the author of this paper compiled an early version of the catalog and shared it with the ADS team to add a relevant list of papers to the ADS. The wide coverage of the science fields of Proceedings of the Japan Academy has been both strong and weak.

If there is a need to make similar arrangements for paper databases in other science fields, this catalog may be useful for selecting relevant papers shared in the respective databases. The accumulation of 13,591 papers may also form the basis for further analysis of the history of science in each field.

4.2. Roles of the PJAs.

With a gradual increase in the number of scholars in the individual scientific community, each community established their own academic societies and started publishing in their journals. This resulted in a reduced need and incentive for researchers to publish papers in the Proceedings of the Japan Academy, despite its high recognition status. Authors tend to submit their original papers more to society journals and, in some cases, to high-citation journals, abroad such as Nature and Science.

So far, a fairly large fraction of papers have been arranged for submission by academy members, identifying relevant authors who have made remarkable scientific results. Because the number of academy members in each science field is small, the fluctuation in the number of papers in each field in PJAs is significant, depending on whether such earnest members were there.

PJAB made a policy change in 2000 to accept review papers in addition to original papers, considering the need to provide updated scientific perspectives to various scientific communities. The increase in the number of review papers over the last two decades is a clear trend. Many review papers are useful summaries of the academic activities around the chosen subject of research. Moreover, the editorial board has concerns about the recent decrease in the number of original papers.

PJAA and PJAB continue open-access, charge-free publication as a mission of the Japan Academy supported by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), despite the increase in article processing expenses for publication. This is a significant merit of the PJAs, considering the fact that some traditional scientific journals are facing financial difficulties due to the increase in online open-access journals.

In this respect, NAKAMURA et al.⁶⁾ was an epoch-making paper reporting findings from Japan’s sample return space mission to Ryugu carried out by Hayabusa-2. The authors of this paper regarded PJAB as a relevant journal to report the first results of such a national project. This study considerably increased the visibility of PJAB. The editorial board welcomes the submission of papers reporting national science projects, as well as papers on new original findings in respective fields.

4.3. Comparison with other National Academies.

Many countries have a National Academy of Sciences to celebrate distinguished scholars, award scientific prizes, prepare advisory reports, organize international communication between academies, and publish academic papers. The history, roles, and scope of these missions are not common. Table 12 compares the information of National Academy of Sciences of the seven countries that responded to the author’s inquiries.

Table 12. National Academies of Sciences

Nation	Organization Name	Founded Year	Journal Name	Journal First Year#1	Members (Women)#2	Papers#3	Budget (US$) Staff
Japan	The Japan Academy	1879	Proceedings of the Japan Academy Series A, B	1912	130 (4%)	46	0.1 M 11
Australia	The Australian Academy of Science	1954	—	—	598 (19%)	#4	11 M 62
France	Académie des Sciences	1666	Comptes Rendus de l’Académie des Sciences	1997 (1835)	283 (16%)	411	4 M 40
Germany	Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina	1652	Nova Acta Leopoldina	(1670)#5	1,250 (16%)	41	16 M 110
Korea	The National Academy of Sciences, Republic of Korea	1954	Proceedings of International Symposium	1960	133 (2%)	3	0.02 M 9
Spain	Real Academia de Ciencias Exactas, Fìsicas y Naturales de España	1847	Revista de la Real Academia de Clencias	2001 (1850)	53 (15%)	190	0.74 M 9
U.K.	The Royal Society	1660	Philosophical Transactions A, B, Royal Society Open Science etc.	1665	1,818 (12%)	2,808	161 M#6 205
U.S.A.	National Academy of Sciences	1863	Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences	1915	2,649 (23%)	3,259	729 M#6 1,100

^#1The 1st year of journal publication in English as the lingua franca. (The 1st year of academic journal publication in mother language is in the parenthesis.)

^#2Number of academy members (domestic members only). The percentage of female members are in parentheses.

^#3Number of academic papers published in 2022 mainly in English. Note that there are more academic papers published in respective first language for nations whose mother language is not English.

^#4Does not publish science papers but reports and newsletters.

^#5Published in Latin until mid 19th century.

^#6Includes budget for wider activities.

The Royal Society (U.K.), Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina (Germany), and Académie des Sciences (France) were established in the 17th century and have a long history of academic activity. The Royal Society of the U.K. has conducted widespread activities.

The National Academy of Sciences (NAS), U.S.A., which was established in 1863, was by far the largest. NAS has the National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Medicine, founded under its charter in 1964 and 1970, respectively. The activity includes funding research and fellowships, and making advisory reports, which is not the case for the Japanese Academy.

The publication of academic papers in English, as their first language, is naturally a great advantage for the U.K. and U.S.A. In the 18th century or before, using Latin as the lingua franca for academic papers was a practice in some European countries. Note that many of the non-English national academies started publishing academic papers in their first language. Some started including papers in English, or even later changed to English.

In this sense, Japan was unique in starting its academic journal publication in English from the beginning. Recent rapid advancements in artificial intelligence translation might override the language barrier in the near future, even in academic journals, once the precision and relevance of translation are verified and accepted by the community.

Incidentally, the first female members elected in other national academies were Florence Sabin (U.S.A. in 1925), Mary Cartwright (U.K. in 1947), Paula Hertwig (Germany in 1953), KIM Helen (Korea in 1954), Dorothy Hill (Australia in 1956), Berta Karlik (Austria in 1973), Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat (France in 1979), and Margarita Salas Falgueras (Spain in 1988). The percentage of female members in the Japan Academy, 3.8%, is strikingly smaller than, for example that for the National Academy of Science of the U.S.A., which is approximately 23%.

The annual budget for publication and the number of supporting staff in the Japan Academy were significantly smaller than those in the U.K. and U.S.A., as shown in Table 12.

Taking some measures to restore and increase the submission of papers, especially in PJAB, is under consideration in the publication committee.

Acknowledgments

The author acknowledges Dr. MORI Shigefumi, the Chairperson of the Section II of the Japan Academy, for guiding the status of the Euclid data base in mathematics. The careful and painstaking work of Mr. TAKEUCHI Motoki, the staff of the Japan Academy, was invaluable in preparing the database of proceedings papers over the last century.

The author also thanks Ms. Carolyn GRANT, the staff of ADS, for including relevant information on PIA papers. The communication and helpful assistance of Mr. KUBOTA Soichi of the Japan Science and Technology Agency, the key staff serving the J-STAGE electronic journal platform, are highly appreciated.

Special thanks are due to the domestic academic societies and foreign national academies that responded to the author’s inquiries regarding the data provided in Tables 4 and 12.

Notes

Contributed by Masanori IYE, M.J.A.; Edited by Shigekazu NAGATA, M.J.A.

Correspondence should be addressed to: M. Iye, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, Osawa 2-21-1, Mitaka, Tokyo 181-8588, Japan (e-mail: [e-mail]).

Footnotes

1 https://doi.org/10.2183/pjab.99.017

References

• 1)  The Japan Academy (1981) A Brief History of the Japan Academy. The Japan Academy, Tokyo.
• 2)   Suzuki,  J. (1969) Obituary of Dr. YABE Hisakatsu. Trans. Jpn. Acad. 27, 202–205 (in Japanese).
• 3)   Nakanishi,  S. (1978) The method of ranked spaces proposed by Professor Kinjirô Kunugi. Math. Japon. 23, 291–323.
• 4)   Yoshida,  K. (1986) Obituary of Dr. KUNUGI Kinjiro. Trans. Jpn. Acad. 34, 85–86 (in Japanese).
• 5)   Kimura,  M. (1989) Obituary of Dr. MAKINO Sajiro. Trans. Jpn. Acad. 44, 209–211 (in Japanese).
• 6)   Nakamura,  E.,  Kobayashi,  K.,  Tanaka,  R.,  Kunihiro,  T.,  Kitagawa,  H.,  Potiszil,  C. et al. (2022) On the origin and evolution of the asteroid Ryugu: A comprehensive geochemical perspective. Proc. Jpn. Acad. Ser. B 98, 227–282.
• 7)   Kimura,  H. (1938) New observing programme for the international latitude service. Proc. Imp. Acad. 14, 102–105.

Profile

Masanori Iye, born in Sapporo in 1949, graduated from the University of Tokyo in 1972 and completed his Ph.D. in 1977 on a theoretical study concerning the origin of the spiral structure of galaxies. He was appointed as an assistant professor in the Department of Astronomy at the University of Tokyo in 1978, an associate professor at the Tokyo Astronomical Observatory in 1986, and a professor at the National Astronomical Observatory (NAOJ) in 1993. Moreover, Iye was a visiting researcher at the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge University in 1982–83 and at the European Southern Observatory in 1983–84. After returning to NAOJ, he developed the first cryogenic CCD camera in 1986 and chaired a working group of the Subaru Telescope project employing the active optics scheme. He devoted himself to constructing the telescope and scientific instruments in Maunakea, Hawaii until 2002. Later, he led the laser-guide-star adaptive optics system development and enhanced the telescope vision by 10× in 2011. He found the most distant galaxy, 13 billion light years away, and elucidated the epoch of cosmic reionization in 2006. Since 2005, he has promoted the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) project and served as the first Vice-Chair of the TMT International Observatory Governing Board. He has received the Nishina Memorial Prize, the Toray Science and Technology Prize, the Medal with Purple Ribbon, the Order of the Sacred Treasure, the Gold and Silver Star, the Japan Academy Prize, and other honors. Furthermore, Iye is a Member of the Japan Academy, a Member of the International Astronomical Union, and a Fellow of the International Society for Optics and Photonics.