There is no denying that the international competitiveness of Japan's industries has drastically fallen from its peak. Especially conspicuous is the decline of the electronics sector. The global rankings of Japanese universities have also steadily fallen. In the 2016 World University Rankings published by the Times Higher Education, the University of Tokyo ranked 39th (up from 43rd last year) and Kyoto University 91st (down from 88th), but Tohoku University, Osaka University and the Tokyo Institute of Technology, which had all ranked among the top 200 last year, barely managed to place between 200th and 300th.
A country-by-country breakdown of academic papers published in top journals shows a dramatic advance by China in contrast to the gradual decline in Japan's global share. True, the number of Japanese Nobel laureates has increased in recent years, but with the exception of professor Shinya Yamanaka, who won the 2012 prize in physiology or medicine for his study of induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, the Japanese winners were recognized for research they did more than 20 or 30 years ago. So it's wrong to say that the rising number of Japanese Nobel laureates is a sign of the resurrection of academic and scientific research in Japan.
The government's Council on Industrial Competitiveness blames the declining competitive edge of Japanese businesses on their stagnating power of innovation — which it says stems from the "old-fashioned" ways of running national universities, which are charged with nurturing the people who go on to play leading roles in promoting innovation — and called for a radical overhaul of their operations.
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