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arashitranslation
Will Japanese be out of Nobel Prize?!
The Nobel Laureates will be announced one after one.
What is to pay attention is “whether Japan will be awarded for the first time for four consecutive years?”.
This year who would get this medal?
Here is the schedule of announcement.
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was announced.
Japanese was not awarded.
Tuesday for the Nobel Prize in Physics,
Wednesday for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, the announcement will be made one by one.
In 2017 will Japanese be awarded…?
According to indicators such as international awards and citation of journal papers
some of the candidates who are promising are introduced.
First of all, as for “Nobel Prize in Physics”,
Hosono Hideo-san who discovered a superconductor material made of iron that
can also be applied to the Linear Chuo Shinkansen.
And then, as for “Nobel Prize in Chemistry”,
the three chemists including Yoshino Akira-san who are known as the creators of lithium-ion battery
used in mobile phones and personal computers.
And then, as for “Nobel Prize in Literature”,
last year American musician Bob Dylan was awarded
which became a topic,
this year would Murakami Haruki-san be awarded.
Though there is increasing expectation,
in fact currently, there is a sense of crisis in the scientific world.
Kajita Takaaki-san,
who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics the year before last year,
was interviewed.
◎2015 Awarded Nobel Prize in Physics
Kajita Takaaki-san
”How would the Nobel Prize of Japan be in the future, to bit look at the long term,
unfortunately, I think we cannot expect much.
The environment for research, in recent years, is getting more and more worsening.
While the management expense grants are reduced,
there is no such environment and position
where young researchers can concentrate on research without worry”
The management expense grants which Kajita-san mentioned is here.
To be used for the operation of universities,
the grants from the government to the national universities,
as shown like this, tends to continue reducing,
it has been reduced by about 10% in about 10 years.
As the grants has been reduced,
it is said that the research has been affected.
How is the research affected?
As said by Kajita-san,
when the operation expense of universities reduces, the number of teachers and staff will be reduced.
However since the amount of work does not reduce,
the remaining people, in addition to taking charge of the teaching work,
have to take over work other than research
such as office work like preparation of reports.
In this case,
the time one can devote to research will be less,
young researchers are more bothered.
This also has an influence and causes such phenomenon.
This is the data on number of journal papers of major countries.
In the annual average ranking from 2003 to 2005,
Japan was at the fourth.
Ten years later, the journal papers of Japan reduced, and the ranking regresses to the ninth.
On the other hand,
China which was in lower ranking than Japan before raises its ranking significantly.
What is necessary in such situation…?
According to science writer Takeuchi Kaoru-san who was former ZERO caster, said that
“since fundamental research which is not in applied field may become great achievement,
it has to increase the research expense to sow the seeds.
Otherwise, he says researchers
may go overseas such as the US”.
Source: News Zeroイチメン (http://www.ntv.co.jp/zero/ichimen/2017/10/post-349.html)