[csa]

This is unlikely. Japan has some legit research facilities and actually quite good academic resources. The problem is that the professors/researchers are heavily leaning towards small wins that get published locally rather than research that would get attention abroad.

The people I knew did this in order to improve their job security and/or job prospects. Basically, having a long list of largely meaningless publications was better received by tenure and hiring committees than making fewer but more substantive contributions. To use a baseball metaphor, they value through their actions the singles hitters more than the doubles or home run hitters.

The government is trying to encourage people to take more risks, but for most of the academics, it just doesn't make sense. The reward for good international-grade research is essentially zero, but the cost of going bust (e.g., a big project without strong publication outcomes) is perceived as being high (although I'm not sure it actually is).

Furthermore, the very best researchers are going to the US and Europe. Research labs there value their Japanese peers more than Japanese labs do in terms of both money and research prestige.

[hkmurakami]

I've heard that one of the contributing factors is that the domestic academic publication industry is big and strong enough that careers can be supported while never publishing internationally. Many countries' academics have no choice but to publish internationally.

Analogous to how a strong domestic economy has impeded a need for better English education and international business skills.

[csa]

The domestic Japanese publication industry certainly does carry enough weight to build a career as a professor on. The question is whether is actually should.

Many of the journals are essentially pay to play -- join an organization, present at the conference, write a paper for the proceedings that is not completely absurd (slight absurdity is ok), ship $100, and you will get published.

There are journals that are more rigorous, and getting into these at last once is often a key to better employment, but these are the exceptions rather than the rule. Furthermore, I would say that most of the work published in the competitive domestic Japan journals would not be publishable abroad both due to limited impact as well as (in some fields) questionable methodology.

As a simple example of the low quality that I found in some journals, many academics were unable to interpret standard t-tests correctly in their evaluation of their research. It brought a tear to my eye.

[hkmurakami]

Appreciate the insider insight!