A comparative study of institutional research policies in the Program for Promoting the Enhancement of Research Universities in Japan

• In Event: Prospects of research: building research universities

Proposal

National governments are interested in promoting research in the international arena. Refining and maintaining the excellence in research and graduate education will help nations maintain the competitive advantage of nations, attract talented individuals, and expand the research capacity in various industries across nations. At the national level, policy makers are likely to focus on investing resources for a group of leading research universities. At the institutional level, researchers, staff members, administrators, and university leaders will need refining research support process on their ongoing research more effectively and efficiently at the domestic, regional, and international levels. At the individual level, researchers must become aware of fundamental guidelines and rules for sharing resources, utilizing equipment, and using institutional facilities, and others relating to research integrity. Establishing and developing research policies will be necessary for leaders and policy makers to support equitable collaborative research at the international, national, institutional, and individual levels.

1. RELEVANCE: Relevance of topic as related to comparative and international education, meeting theme and/or SIG/Committee
The primary objective of this study is to examine and compare how the leading research universities have established and developed the institutional policies in promoting and supporting research at the higher education institutions, national institutes, and research organizations in the “Program for Promoting the Enhancement of Research Universities” which is established and organized by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (NEXT) in Japan.

There are two primary objectives in the “Program for Promoting the Enhancement of Research Universities,” and there are the 19 higher education institutions, one national institute, and two research organizations in the project to promote research between 2013 and 2023. The first objective of the project is to enhance personnel and human resources management for research, and the second objective of the project is to refine research environment for researchers to focus on their research.

The results of this study outline the influential factors, provide the theorized conceptual framework, and list the indicators to understand efforts in promoting research at the institutional level. This study results will be beneficial to researchers, senior administrators, policy makers, and institutional leaders to understand what organizational commitments would be commonly utilized to promote research among leading research universities in higher education.

2. THEORY/CONTEXT: Strength of theoretical framework or contextualization
In this study, the “Program for Promoting the Enhancement of Research Universities” refers to the national project organized by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (NEXT) in Japan. This program intends to provide special funding support to a group of the selected leading higher education institutions, national institutes, and research organizations for ten years starting in 2013. I comparatively analyze the research policies, efforts, and practices at the institutional level in the “Program for Promoting the Enhancement of Research Universities,” and I will establish the conceptual framework and list the indicators to understand efforts in promoting research at the institutional level, based on the previous study in establishing internationalization performance indicators (Gao, 2018). The primary objectives of this project is to enhance personnel and human resources management for research and refine research environment for researchers to focus on their research.

In this study, three research questions are defined: (1) What research criteria were commonly found in the research policies (in the first 5 years)?, (2) What research criteria were highly rated in the research policies at the institutional level in the intermediate evaluation (in the first 5 years)?, (3) What research policies were established and developed in promoting institutional research support policies and fostering research?

3. INQUIRY: Strength of critical analysis or research methods (including design, data collection, analysis, etc.)
This study utilized a qualitative research analysis with the four dimensions such as “Internationally cooperative research programmes,” “International focused research centres,” “International researchers,” and “Internationally acknowledged research achievement” (Gao, 2018). I examine the research policies of the 19 higher education institutions, one national institute, and two research organizations in the “Program for Promoting the Enhancement of Research Universities” and analyze institutional policies and efforts based on the two key influential themes “Establishing the positions of University Research Administrators” and “Incorporating Institutional Research concepts” in this study.

In order to build a justification for key influential factors, I collected data through the published institutional policies on the website of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (NEXT) and relevant information of the “Program for Promoting the Enhancement of Research Universities” between 2013 and 2022. In this data collection process, I will utilize the data triangulation process to understand boarder information of the research subjects (Creswell and Creswell, 2018).

The information of the official documentations, policies, and websites provide information to individual researchers and the public. During the data analysis process, I applied the four dimensions such as “Internationally cooperative research programmes,” “International focused research centres,” “International researchers,” and “Internationally acknowledged research achievement” to commonly found indicators of each institution, outline the commonly found descriptive outcomes, and generate interpretations (Gao, 2018).

4. FINDINGS: Clarity and coherence in the presentation of findings or argument
Based on the finding analysis, I will present the detailed findings and the theorized conceptual framework at the conference presentation. According to the preliminary analysis, most institutional members of the “Program for Promoting the Enhancement of Research Universities” created new personal positions to enhance research support and refine institutional policies. These newly created positions are called as “University Research Administrators,” and the detailed analysis (outlining specific roles and responsibilities of the University Research Administrators; outlining detailed research support policies and practices) will present at the conference presentation.

5. CONTRIBUTION: Scholarly originality or contribution to existing knowledge
Promoting research and refining research education is the prioritized agenda for higher education institutions. All stakeholders should be aware of the institutional commitments in promoting research and advancing research policies will benefit all researchers to conduct their research in the international arena. This study results will benefit the stakeholders to understand what institutional commitments and efforts have been practiced supporting research across leading research universities.

Author

• Takehito Kamata, Sophia University