Why are Japanese scientists headed to China?

[beijingwalker]

Why are Japanese scientists headed to China?

23 February 2023

Japanese scientists are leaving the country for the better prospects offered by Chinese universities.

China’s investment in research and development sets an example that other countries should follow as scientists are leaving Japan to escape restrictive work environments and lack of funding. For Japan to improve its international research standings, it will have to foster work environments that allow scientists’ free devotion to their work.

During the past two decades, Japanese scientists have adopted fatalistic attitudes, becoming resigned about their work and complaining of tiny budgets or a lack of time for proper research. By comparison, one Japanese scientist remembers seeing a group of Chinese students entranced by a professor from China, who convinced them to go to his research center while at a meeting in the US in winter 2019.

The scientist had been jobhunting for a few years, hoping to become an associate professor at a Japanese university, but there were no openings. Recalling the enthusiasm of the Chinese scientist in America, he got a job as an associate professor and moved to China in 2022. Scientists there were highly motivated, he said, rarely missing an opportunity to publish research articles.

Compared to Japan, Chinese society esteems science and academia to a greater degree. Another scientist says that the striking difference between Japanese and Chinese labs is communication. He had also gone through gruelling job searches, moving to China as a last resort but ultimately getting a salary five times higher than he earned five years before.

Japanese scientists say funding isn’t the only issue​

Researchers in China seem to have connections with fellow labmates as well as supervisors, compared to Japan where a rigid hierarchy makes socialization difficult. It might be the sociability in Chinese labs that increases their output, more so than funding.

This is the suggestion of Atsushi Sunami, president of the Sasakawa Peace Foundation and an expert on China’s approach to science, who said institutional arrangement is the key. China’s university reforms gave considerable discretion to university management. This allows for free research by even young scientists, who have the opportunity to win grants and promotions.

Whether the alliance with the US and the Netherlands will affect the rate of Japan-China transfers remains to be seen.

Over the last 20 years, China and Japan have swapped places in terms of scientific presence. China overtook the US to become the top publisher of research papers globally. Japan has dropped to 12th in terms of the number of top ten articles in the world, while China sits at the top of this ranking.

Supposedly, the Japanese decline is the result of “selection and concentration” policy that invests in only a few research fields due to limited funds. This means budgets focus on particular universities and scientists find it difficult to obtain grants. It’s very difficult to get a permanent post, as government subsidies for operating costs have either been cut, or left at insubstantial amounts.

Education ministry figures show the annual number of Ph.D.s obtained in Japan peaked at 17,860 in fiscal 2006 and has hovered around 15,000 in recent years. The number of Ph.D.s obtained in China skyrocketed from 26,506 in fiscal 2005 to 65,585 in fiscal 2020—an increase of about 150 percent.

Why are Japanese scientists headed to China?

China is appealing to Japanese scientists, as the country can offer better work opportunities than their own.

techhq.com

 

[beijingwalker]

Young Japanese scholars head to China for stable, independent jobs​

By KEIKO YOSHIOKA/ Senior Staff Writer

October 14, 2022 at 10:30 JST

Motoyuki Hattori was promising young scholar in Japan, held a position at the nation’s most elite university, and had career prospects that were far more solid than those of his peers.

But Hattori left Japan seven years ago for a professorship at a university in China, and he has never looked back.

Hattori, now 40, who specializes in structure and function of membrane transporters, wanted to quickly start his own laboratory. And that was possible at Fudan University in Shanghai.

“In Japan’s academic culture, it usually takes 10 years or so until post-doctorate researchers can set up their own labs after completing the so-called ‘apprenticeship’ period under professors,” he said in a recent online interview. “I contemplated about what I should do in my 30s, when I was physically and mentally capable of carrying out demanding work. My conclusion was to go overseas.”

He is not alone.

A number of Japanese scholars are opting to do research in China mainly because of something that most young workers want: job stability.

Japan continues to use a funding system that critics say is pushing away young researchers.

To cover costs for personnel and research activities, Japanese national universities and research institutes had long relied on government grants and “competitive research funds,” which are supplied only for planned projects submitted by scientists and approved in a government review.

Since 2004, the government has been scaling back university grants and increasing competitive funds.

But the competitive funds are awarded to projects that last only three to 10 years or so, leading to insecure employment situations.

Supporters of the shift say the fixed-term project contracts fuel mobility and competition, thus revitalizing scientific research.

With no guarantee for funding, however, aspiring researchers, particularly those in basic research, may be reluctant to tackle a challenging project while planning their personal lives from a long-term perspective, critics say.

Hattori said the availability of more secure positions at Chinese universities is the biggest reason Japanese scholars relocate to China.

“As far as I know, dozens of young and mid-career Japanese scientists are doing research in this country,” he said. “They left Japan because the bulk of appointments available were fixed-term contracts.”

He stressed, “I believe most of them would have stayed in Japan if they had had a better job security.”

A majority of them, Hattori said, are in basic research, such as theoretical physics, astronomy and life sciences.

A study by the education ministry’s National Institute of Science and Technology Policy (NISTEP) found that 67.6 percent of postdoctoral researchers at Japanese universities and publicly supported research institutes were working under contracts lasting less than three years in fiscal 2018.

OVESEAS APPLICATIONS

When he was 32, Hattori was an assistant professor of life sciences under a fixed-term contract at the University of Tokyo. The government-affiliated Japan Science and Technology Agency selected him as a recipient of research grants for promising young scholars.

Still, he chose Fudan University from among the offers provided by several overseas universities.

Hattori noted that when he studied at Oregon Health Science University in the United States after obtaining a Ph.D. in science in Japan, many of his American colleagues his age had already set up their own labs.

Fudan University ranks eighth in Asia, one notch above Kyoto University, according to the latest QS World University Rankings by Britain’s Quacquarelli Symonds Ltd.

Shanghai was not a totally unfamiliar world for Hattori. His wife hails from the metropolis.

But it was China’s fast changing academic landscape that made it easier for Hattori to take the leap abroad.

“Chinese scholars who have completed their training in the United States are returning to China, taking senior positions at universities, and introducing U.S.-style management of operations,” he said. “Those returnees respect young researchers’ self-initiatives and let them set up their labs, earlier than in Japan.”

Hattori said his Chinese colleagues who landed professorships at Fudan University around the same time as he did were in his generation.

His annual pay is about 8 million yen ($55,000), comparable with a scientist of a similar age on a tenure track in Japan.

The big difference, however, is that Hattori is receiving the equivalent of more than 100 million yen over a six-year period for his startup lab.

As China’s economy grew, it began accepting more students at universities. The number of college students has grown tenfold over the past 20 years.

The number of faculty members has also expanded.

For example, the School of Life Sciences at Fudan University where Hattori works has more than doubled its number of professors over a decade.

JOB SECURITY

Hayato Shimabukuro, 34, gained a Ph.D. in astronomy from Nagoya University, conducted research at the Paris Observatory, and then moved to China’s elite Tsinghua University in Beijing in 2018.

In late 2019, he landed his current post of associate research professor of astronomy at Yunnan University’s Southwestern Institute for Astronomy Research, also in China.

“The No. 1 reason I came to China was for a secure position,” Shimabukuro said.

Shimabukuro earns about 6 million yen in annual salary plus about 30 million yen in research funds over a three-year period.

The Japanese science community was both stunned and alarmed when Akira Fujishima, an 80-year-old chemist who is widely regarded as a potential Japanese Nobel laureate for his photocatalysis studies, relocated to China with his research team last year.

Fujishima, a former president of the Tokyo University of Science, accepted a full-time position at the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology.

Observers said Fujishima and his team were looking for an education facility where they could continue their studies—and that school was located in China.

“There was a time when U.S. institutions used to recruit retired distinguished scientists from Europe to enhance their prestige and to attract young promising professionals keen to collaborate with them,” Hattori said.

China also used that strategy in the past, but not so much anymore, he added.

“Chinese scientists in their 30s and 40s who studied in the United States have begun returning home to do research and produce scientific articles to the world,” he said. “With a growing pool of young talent, China does not have to rely on costly programs to lure big names.”

China’s research clout is impressive.

The NISTEP’s “Japanese Science and Technology Indicators 2022” report showed that between 2018 and 2020, China ranked No. 1 globally in terms of the number of papers it published in science and engineering journals around the world.

China also placed at the top both in its share of papers in the top 10 percent and the top 1 percent by number of citations in such publications over the same period.

Japan ranked fifth, 12th, 10th in each of the three categories, respectively, extending a sliding trend.

China spends three times more than Japan on research and development.

Although the confrontation between China and the United States has intensified in recent years, Chinese represent the largest group of foreign students earning doctorates at U.S. schools.

The Chinese figure is 50 times the number of Japanese who earn their Ph.D.s in the United States.

Some in Japan are quick to suspect that Japanese researchers who move to China are possible spies who might leak sensitive information and technology, particularly about military matters.

Hattori, however, warned that bashing Japanese scientists in China could mask the fundamental problems Japan needs to address: its international slide in scientific research and its dismal employment situation for scholars.

Hattori suggested that Japan put together an attractive recruitment plan to lure back Japanese scholars, reverse the “brain drain” and halt its declining international research status.

China’s Thousand Talents recruitment program, which started in 2008, was criticized in Japan as a way to “steal” foreign researchers.

Although Hattori receives grants from the program, he said its purpose was to lure Chinese researchers overseas back home with hefty grants.

He said Japan could learn a lesson from the program.

He recommended offering full-time positions at universities across Japan, not just at a handful of prestigious schools in large cities.

Hattori noted that the Chinese government has increased support to regional universities to raise academic standards across the country.

Some of Hattori’s colleagues at Fudan University have moved from Shanghai to work at regional schools in line with this effort.

“The Japanese government continued with a policy to select only a limited number of schools that receive lavish research funding, but that plan has been detrimental to the country’s research,” he said.

“It is essential for progress in science to have large numbers of scholars and to have them in broader areas,” he said. “It is the same as a mountain. The higher a mountain is, the larger its foundation is.”

Young Japanese scholars head to China for stable, independent jobs | The Asahi Shimbun: Breaking News, Japan News and Analysis

 

[REhorror]

Hmm, brain drain for Japan, it's over!

 

[beijingwalker]

Japan is trying to get foreign blue collar workers in while their educated talents are leaving for China. The governments of China , Japan and S.Korea are not on good terms but the people still make each other the top choices for relocation. You don't see them moving to "democratic" India.

 

[beijingwalker]

Even more so for Taiwan, almost every single famous Taiwan entertainer hade relocated to mainland China, no one stays in Taiwan.

Taiwan’s brain drain: semiconductor engineers head to China​

Taiwan’s brain drain: semiconductor engineers head to China

Tech Scroll Asia, your guide to the billions made and lost in Asia tech

www.ft.com

 

[beijingwalker]

Scientists leave Japan for China, wooed by better teamwork, jobs​

THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

January 10, 2023 at 07:00 JST

Motoharu Nowada in Kanagawa Prefecture chats with members of his lab in China through online conferencing in August. He had returned to Japan because of the COVID-19 pandemic. (Shoko Tamaki)

Scientists who left Japan for better prospects elsewhere said the nation’s decision-makers could learn from China’s massive push to become a world leader in scientific research.

China has aggressively invested in research and development, poaching more and more scientists from places like Japan, where researchers face restrictive work environments and a dearth of funding.

One expert said if Japan wants to improve its international research standings and stop the brain drain of its fledgling researchers, it will have to foster work environments that allow scientists to devote themselves freely to their research.

MORE OPPORTUNITIES, MORE PRESTIGE

A Japanese scientist in his 30s remembers the immense pressure he felt when his term as assistant professor was about to expire in 2022.

He had been job hunting for a few years, seeking to become an associate professor at a national university in Japan, but nothing turned up.

“Oh, I failed again,” he said to himself. “Perhaps it’s time to begin applying for jobs at places other than universities I want to work at.”

As he pondered the thought, one scene would not leave his mind.

When he attended a scientific meeting in the United States in winter 2019, he had an opportunity to see a professor from China he knew who was wooing Chinese students studying abroad to his new research center.

As he watched young Chinese researchers listen to the professor with beaming eyes, he started to feel frustrated by the thought that Japan could end up being left behind in China’s dust.

The Japanese researchers he knew were all prone to fatalism. They would make up excuses or become resigned about their work. They often complained of minuscule budgets or a lack of time for doing adequate research.

Once he was back in Japan, he told his wife, “Those (Chinese students) are the sort of enthusiastic people I wish to work with.”

The scientist had also been approached by the professor for recruitment.

He worried that going to China offered promised nothing in return, but he decided to give it a shot.

“I needed the determination of someone announcing himself as a warlord during the Warring States Period (late 15th and 16th centuries),” he said.

He got a gig as an associate professor and moved to China with his family in spring 2022.

He found the scientists there to be highly motivated. They care about publishing many research articles and rarely miss an opportunity, he said.

The man said he feels that, unlike in Japan, Chinese society holds science and academia in high esteem, and promising young scientists are being hired and given status while they are still budding.

But he does not believe everything is rosy about being a researcher in China. There can be top-down policy changes that make it unnervingly difficult to tell whether scientists will continue to grow in number and whether political authorities will continue to place importance on science.

Yet he said he still feels excited at the prospect of doing something new.

WORKPLACES STIFLING PROGRESS

Motoharu Nowada, a 49-year-old space plasma physicist, was employed as a postdoctoral research fellow at Peking University in Beijing in 2010. His monthly take-home pay was only about 32,500 yen ($245) at the time.

Nowada said he ended up in China by chance.
After obtaining a Ph.D. at Tokai University in Japan, he could not find work at national universities. He landed a job at a university in Taiwan on a contract that would last two and a half years.

When that term expired, he was back in the job hunt but was met with the same rejections from universities in Japan. He was offered a job after he contacted a Peking University professor whose research paper had interested him.

Nowada’s contract expired again after five years, and his third spell of job hunting was even tougher than the previous time, possibly because he was older.

In the end, the Peking University professor introduced Nowada to a professor with Shandong University in China’s Shandong province, who hired him as a research associate.

He is being paid five times what he received five years earlier, thanks partly to China’s economic growth.

Although his job comes with a term that expires in 2024, Nowada said he has no regrets about his choice.

One thing that he finds strikingly different between Japanese and Chinese universities is the way people communicate within a lab.

In China, researchers form strong connections not only with supervisors but also with fellow lab mates, who respond immediately to social media messages.

But at many universities in Japan, the hierarchy is much more rigid, with the professor being the king of the castle.

After spending more than a decade at Chinese universities, Nowada said he does not necessarily agree with the popular view that China’s remarkable scientific results are made because research is better funded there than it is in Japan.

“I believe the environment that allows scientists to discuss anything among themselves is a major reason that China’s research capabilities improved,” he said.

Nowada said he has the impression that more Japanese scientists in recent years hope to go to China, where they believe there is better funding and more time set aside for research.

“By basic principle, however, your research proposals will not pass the screening and you will not be given posts in China unless your research is novel and you have delivered results,” he said.

Nowada said that had he stayed in Japan, he would not have published as many research articles.

“I hope young Japanese scientists will think of China as one optional destination on the understanding that competition is tough in the country,” he said.

JAPAN FALLING BEHIND IN RANKINGS

Japan and China have switched places when it comes to their presence in the world of science over the past 20 years.

An education ministry study found China overtook the United States in recent years to become the world’s top publisher of research papers and the country with the highest number of high-quality papers with citation counts in the top 10 percent.

apan ranked fourth in terms of the number of top 10 percent articles 20 years ago. It fell to sixth place 10 years ago, and the latest survey from 2022 found it had fallen out of the top 10 nations to rank 12th.

Japan’s decline in research abilities is blamed partly on the nation’s “selection and concentration” policy, where it invests intensively in only a few research fields because of limited funds.

Budgets tend to be focused on a limited set of universities, and scientists find it particularly hard to obtain grants in basic research fields.

Government subsidies for the operating costs of national universities, which are used to cover personnel, have either continued to shrink or, at best, have not improved. Young scientists are hard-pressed to land permanent posts.

Fewer researchers are obtaining Ph.D.s because of the uncertainty about the future.

Education ministry figures show the annual number of Ph.D.s obtained in Japan peaked at 17,860 in fiscal 2006 and has hovered around 15,000 in recent years. The number of Ph.D.s obtained in China skyrocketed from 26,506 in fiscal 2005 to 65,585 in fiscal 2020—an increase of about 150 percent.

Japan has set a goal of becoming a leader in science and technology, but its rank will only decline further if the scientist brain drain accelerates.

China is investing aggressively in science and technology, with research and development expenses in the country reaching 59 trillion yen in 2020, making it second in the world only to the United States. Japan only spent 17.6 trillion yen.

Basic research spending in China is also rising. In 1991, it was less than one-20th of Japan’s amount. In 2020, it reached 3.5 trillion yen—exceeding Japan’s 2.7 trillion yen.

The spectacular growth of China is often attributed to its abundant personnel and research funding.

But an expert on China’s approach to science, Atsushi Sunami, president of the Sasakawa Peace Foundation, said institutional arrangement is key before everything else.

China pressed ahead with university reforms on the government’s initiative and gave considerable discretion to members of university management, including presidents.

That created an environment that allows free research, where even young scientists have opportunities to be promoted and to win research grants if they are competent, Sunami said.

The country is also aggressively luring excellent researchers who have studied abroad.

It is unknown, however, whether China will be able to remain so competitive in the shadow of rising tensions between Washington and Beijing.

“I feel that China’s research environment is undergoing a major change because the state and its political circles have started intervening in freedom of speech,” Sunami said. “I am also worried about the extent to which the country’s ‘zero-COVID’ policy, which entailed extremely strict regulations, and other factors have influenced the research environment.”

Scientists leave Japan for China, wooed by better teamwork, jobs | The Asahi Shimbun: Breaking News, Japan News and Analysis

 

[PAKISTANFOREVER]

Why are Japanese scientists headed to China?

23 February 2023

Japanese scientists are leaving the country for the better prospects offered by Chinese universities.

China’s investment in research and development sets an example that other countries should follow as scientists are leaving Japan to escape restrictive work environments and lack of funding. For Japan to improve its international research standings, it will have to foster work environments that allow scientists’ free devotion to their work.

During the past two decades, Japanese scientists have adopted fatalistic attitudes, becoming resigned about their work and complaining of tiny budgets or a lack of time for proper research. By comparison, one Japanese scientist remembers seeing a group of Chinese students entranced by a professor from China, who convinced them to go to his research center while at a meeting in the US in winter 2019.

The scientist had been jobhunting for a few years, hoping to become an associate professor at a Japanese university, but there were no openings. Recalling the enthusiasm of the Chinese scientist in America, he got a job as an associate professor and moved to China in 2022. Scientists there were highly motivated, he said, rarely missing an opportunity to publish research articles.

Compared to Japan, Chinese society esteems science and academia to a greater degree. Another scientist says that the striking difference between Japanese and Chinese labs is communication. He had also gone through gruelling job searches, moving to China as a last resort but ultimately getting a salary five times higher than he earned five years before.

Japanese scientists say funding isn’t the only issue​

Researchers in China seem to have connections with fellow labmates as well as supervisors, compared to Japan where a rigid hierarchy makes socialization difficult. It might be the sociability in Chinese labs that increases their output, more so than funding.

This is the suggestion of Atsushi Sunami, president of the Sasakawa Peace Foundation and an expert on China’s approach to science, who said institutional arrangement is the key. China’s university reforms gave considerable discretion to university management. This allows for free research by even young scientists, who have the opportunity to win grants and promotions.

Whether the alliance with the US and the Netherlands will affect the rate of Japan-China transfers remains to be seen.

Over the last 20 years, China and Japan have swapped places in terms of scientific presence. China overtook the US to become the top publisher of research papers globally. Japan has dropped to 12th in terms of the number of top ten articles in the world, while China sits at the top of this ranking.

Supposedly, the Japanese decline is the result of “selection and concentration” policy that invests in only a few research fields due to limited funds. This means budgets focus on particular universities and scientists find it difficult to obtain grants. It’s very difficult to get a permanent post, as government subsidies for operating costs have either been cut, or left at insubstantial amounts.

Education ministry figures show the annual number of Ph.D.s obtained in Japan peaked at 17,860 in fiscal 2006 and has hovered around 15,000 in recent years. The number of Ph.D.s obtained in China skyrocketed from 26,506 in fiscal 2005 to 65,585 in fiscal 2020—an increase of about 150 percent.

Why are Japanese scientists headed to China?

China is appealing to Japanese scientists, as the country can offer better work opportunities than their own.

techhq.com

Looks like China is set to become the first non-white nation that can 100% indigenously invent and produce advanced sciences and technologies comparable to that of the West. WELL DONE China!........