In FY 2012, the system of Kakenhi Grants-in-Aid for Publication of Research Results underwent a major revision. The new grant system aims to strengthen Japan’s capacity for international transmission of information by allowing scientific associations and similar bodies to form cooperative arrangements among themselves, and by promoting the move from print journals to electronic formats and Open Access. Priority will now be given to scholarly associations that pursue such initiatives. Making this country’s outstanding research results available internationally is a goal that surely deserves unanimous support, as long as no one is advocating academic nationalism. It is also undeniably true that Japan has been slow to make its researchers’ work available digitally. The present revision can thus be understood as consistent with these forward-looking aims.

However, a number of problems have been highlighted by the recent survey, conducted by the Subcommittee for Journal Issues of the SCJ’s Committee for Scientific Community, in which scholarly associations nationwide were asked their opinions of the revision. The first problem is the fact that as many as 73 percent of the associations that responded to the survey were not aware of the revision. Even allowing for this being the first time, clearly the new system had insufficient visibility. Further, although 63 percent of all associations were in favor of the revision, 37 percent (the same percentage as those not in favor) had not considered applying for Kakenhi under the new framework. Of those that considered it, 73 percent did apply. Setting aside the issue of the need to publicize the change, I am struck that over half of both the associations that “considered applying this year” and the associations that “did not consider applying this year” said that whether they would apply next year or not depended on how the system was implemented. In other words, many associations do not have a handle on the new system. Moreover, quite a number of associations are not showing interest in the new system.

This tendency seems to be strongest in the humanities, as does outright opposition to the revision. As a member of several associations in the humanities, I would like to explore the reasons for this.

First, I would like to point out that publishing journal articles in Japanese is not necessarily incompatible with making one’s work available internationally. The new system is composed of two types of grants. Type I in the new system is for scientific publications that are entirely in English, and that is a condition of the Open Access grants. But the humanities do not lend themselves to integration through the use of English, as the research interests of scholars in these fields lead them to use many languages, and this polyglot nature is seen as an inherent part of the significance of the humanities. Also, it should be remembered that outstanding work done in Japanese, especially in Japan studies, is able to reach an international audience because serious scholars overseas read the literature in Japanese. In some fields, there are even non-native speakers, whether studying in Japan or doing research at universities in other countries, who want to submit papers in Japanese to journals published in Japan, and we should welcome that fact.

Another point worth noting is that associations in the humanities often have an eclectic makeup that does not consist entirely of researchers. When publishing for such a broad membership, it is hard to justify unifying the medium by using English only when this will most likely be at the expense of sharing results and returning the benefits of scholarship to society.

Furthermore, the main focus of every association’s efforts is training the next generation of scholars, including graduate students. Many times, being able to write a quality academic paper in proper Japanese is a prerequisite for writing one in English. Peer review plays a major role in this regard, and journals thus provide a training ground for young scholars from graduate schools around the country. It can safely be said that journals help maintain the foundations of Japanese scholarship. For these reasons, most humanities journals cannot change course and start publishing entirely in English, nor should they be expected to do so. In light of these various concerns, the bar is set too high for initiatives in the humanities to receive Type I grants.

As for Type II, eligible projects are defined thus: “initiatives to strengthen the information transmission capacity that concern scientific publications other than Type I. However, in principle this applies to initiatives in the humanities and social sciences in which every original article in Japanese has an English abstract or translation.” It is certainly much easier for humanities journals to apply in this category. However, many journals already publish English abstracts, and a considerable number have strived to improve their ratio of English to Japanese under the old system. When these kinds of associations are asked to formulate a five-year plan for strengthening their capacity for international information transmission, realistically there is little they can say other than that they will go on increasing the ratio of English indefinitely. They will find it difficult to produce a clear-sighted, workable vision of the future, and it would be understandable if they were to opt not to apply. Regrettably, this means that associations that have already worked hard to increase their ratio of English will be left out in the cold. In my view, the previous ratio of 50 percent struck the right balance between two goals: internationalization (which requires the use of English or other foreign languages) and continuing to function as a domestic journal (which requires the use of Japanese). These are, after all, Japanese journals, and surely even observers in other countries would see nothing wrong with a fifty-fifty balance. If there is no guarantee that a policy of publishing in Japanese can be sustained—if Type II is, in other words, merely a transitional step on the way to Type I—associations in the humanities will understandably be reluctant to apply even for Type II.

Next, I would like to look at the prospects for strengthening the capacity for international information transmission through cooperative arrangements. Generally speaking, scholarly associations in the humanities tend not to be large since the disciplines are highly subdivided. From the outside, the associations may appear fragmented and mutually isolated, but the members of each one take pride in their high level of expertise and, accordingly, have developed unique, specialized bulletins, which, together with conferences, are a mainstay of their activities. The journal, in effect, establishes the association’s identity, and that is why the editorial board and the others involved volunteer their time to carry out peer review and editorial duties. It is not easy to find people to serve on editorial boards in view of the heavy burden that has fallen on faculty members since the introduction of external evaluations and other aspects of the university reforms launched in the early 2000s. Journals today are barely surviving thanks to the selfless efforts of those who produce them. The costs are almost entirely paid out of membership dues; conversely, most of an association’s dues go to publishing its journal. A drop in the income from dues would, of course, threaten the journal’s existence, but in recent years researchers, especially the younger ones, have not been in a position to pay higher fees; if anything, fees are more likely to be reduced or discounted. Under these conditions, association bulletins in the humanities are barely scraping by in terms of both personnel and funds.

Would it be feasible or effective, then, for several associations to share a journal? While there have been moves of this kind among associations in related fields, they remain few in number. It seems to me that sharing is difficult where each association identifies so closely with its journal. Each has its own history and its own supporters, and sharing a journal could weaken its ability to attract members. It cannot be an easy decision for the executive boards to take. In the physical sciences, one hears of grand concepts that set out to create a leading journal, in English, in the name of a more comprehensive “-ology” that transcends the divisions among existing journals, but I fear the sciences and the humanities part company at that point. It is hard in humanities to imagine finding editors with the metadisciplinary perspective and the extensive knowledge of the research that they would need in order to assess and select articles, or translators versatile enough to handle all the languages and topics involved. In that respect, I cannot help feeling that there is an essential difference in the scholarly culture between the sciences and the humanities.

The views I have expressed here as a member of the humanities may appear behind the times, but in point of fact my colleagues, too, have long been working toward reaching an international audience and using digital media. Compared to just a few years ago, the best young researchers are vastly more active in submitting articles to overseas journals, holding international research meetings, and writing papers and editing volumes in foreign languages. (The problem is that, despite these efforts, few are able to obtain full-time academic positions.) Scholarly associations are making steady progress toward publishing their journals electronically, and the subscriptions are contributing to their meager incomes. Against that background, I hope that the system will be explained and implemented in such a way that the humanities associations do not feel alienated and so that the revision does not have the opposite impact from that intended.

Lastly, I would like to make a suggestion. The present revision is addressed mainly to scholarly associations, but in the humanities there are already several international journals (or their equivalent) with established reputations, published in English, that are put out by universities, research institutes, or other academic entities that are not associations. If the aim is to strengthen Japan’s capacity for international transmission of scholarship, why not make better use of existing assets like these? If the publishing entities should happen to be Joint Usage/Research Centers, they are all the more suited to the role, but in any case none of them are doing this work in comfortable circumstances. In view of the personnel and budget constraints, we would do well to consider whether it might not be more effective to support and strengthen these existing programs.

The Kakenhi Grants-in-Aid for Publication of Scientific Results have been reformed as of FY 2013, and the grant category “scientific periodicals” has been changed into “programs for strengthening the capacity for international information transmission.” The main differences are twofold: firstly, the new system will cover all the costs of any project for strengthen the capacity for international information transmission and the criteria for the journals have also been greatly expanded, while there were tight restrictions on journals that could receive grants and on the expenses they could be used to pay. Second, the new grants aim for promoting “new projects” for strengthening the capacity for international information transmission and also that the duration of the grants is limited to five years and applicants must set clear targets and evaluation indices, whereas the old grants are intended for journals, that is, for the periodical publication of journals that met certain conditions.

There would be a certain disadvantage for Japanese researchers if they need to rely on foreign journals as places for publishing the outcomes of their research. It might even be thought as our responsibility to publish appropriate journals when we consider the level of research in our country. Furthermore, improvements of the type of current reformation of Kakenhi are inevitable if an existing grant has any danger of being vested interests for particular journals and of helping continuing the publication of the journals aimlessly. However, it seems that we need to consider carefully in order to decide whether we should apply and gain the new grant actually, particularly in philosophy and its related fields.

One problem is in the features of the new grant that we need to set clear targets and evaluation indices. In the form of the application, there is an instruction that “to set concrete targets including evaluation indices, and to quantify the numerical indices if the evaluation indices can be expressed by using them” in the item “Targets and Evaluation Indices.” Here, typical examples for the concrete metrics are the Impact Factor, number of articles submitted, acceptance rate, circulation, and so on. This instruction does not actually force applicants to set the targets by using numerical indices, but it does give an impression that it is strongly recommended to use them. It is true that such indices are readily available for journals in sciences and technology, and they are certainly not unrelated to journals in the philosophical fields.

However, improvements of such numerical indices do not always mean strengthening of the capacity for information transmission, and unreasonable efforts for the improvements of such numerical indices might cause distortion and even reduce the quality of the journal, at least in philosophical fields. And we do not know how an application will be evaluated if it disregard the instruction. Since it is hard to judge the real value of a paper in philosophy within a short period, honestly speaking, the only target we can set without using numerical indices is at most “to publish articles of potentially high value”, and hence it is very hard “to set concrete targets” without using numerical indices. 

Another problem is that there is a possibility that the programs based on the new grant could come to be “wasteful public works projects,” because the grant does not cover academic activities of associations. The true purpose of the grant is, to help publish journals that will carry good research papers. The situation may be different in varieties of fields of research, but, in the areas of philosophy that have deep roots in the Western tradition, improvements of the name value of a journal by editorial and distribution efforts will end up receiving nothing but worthless papers from all over the world if they are not accompanied with substantive academic activities. The improvements might be good for sales and for income of the publisher and the association, but, unless the activity based on the grants leads to publication of good articles, they will amount to “wasteful public works projects” that are costly boondoggles without real effects.

The facts that only “new projects” are eligible and that the grant is limited to five years are likely to exacerbate this tendency. The “new projects” must be closed after five years even if the associations could come upon good ideas now, and the journals will be return to the original situations if the association could not find another “new projects” five years later. Obviously, it is hoped that the journals will be transformed during those five years, but transformation of journals is no easy matter. There is a strong anxiety that nothing will be changed after all even if the associations give lavish party and spend actively for five years. This is another characteristic of the “wasteful public works projects.”

Of course, these problems can be solved by the methods of implementations of the grant to some extent, and they are problems that are related to how to use the grant and that is responsible for the applicants rather than problems about the system of the grant. In addition, we can find careful treatments for managing the contradicting two requirements: to eliminate waste by making the purpose of the grants clear, and to allow the applicants as much freedom as possible. Failure to make optimal use of the grant system does not necessarily mean that the system itself is at fault. The directors of the associations and the editors of journals should propose more exciting projects than anything the grant makers had envisaged, and it is enough that they do not apply the grant if they consider the grants not worth applying for.

Nevertheless, bearing in mind the limited overall availability of funds, it is only natural to want the best possible subsidy system. Speaking only of philosophy and related fields, it is impossible to improve the overall capacity for international information transmission only by improving the peer review, editing, and distribution of journals that are eligible for the new grant. One example of an effective project for that purpose might be Japanese researchers organizing an international conference at an overseas venue with the involvement of leading members of the field outside Japan, and then devoting a special issue of a Japanese journal to the conference. But such an undertaking would be beyond the limited means of the philosophical fields, and under the present framework it would not qualify for a grant. To improve the capacity of journals to communicate internationally, collaborations of grants for the journals themselves and for scholarly activities that use the journals are effective. In addition, there is a definite need for having internationally competitive publishers in Japan.

These days, it is not unusual for the value of researchers or their work to be measured by how much competitive funding they obtain from the government, even though we are all aware of the harmful effects and limitations of such a view. The universities, which are evaluated in a similar light, demand that their faculty members bring in competitive funding. This inevitably leads to many unnecessary applications to grants. Peer review should serve as proof of the legitimacy of judgments made on journals, but there is no guarantee that peer review will fall into collusion between the specialists. Therefore, it is not the special case about publication of journals that any projects based on competitive funding could quite easily turn into “wasteful public works projects.” But when the target is research, even apparently wasteful spending may eventually bear fruit and lead to first-class work, and the same is true of the grants to journals. I sincerely hope that the present reform of the system for grants-in-aid to periodicals will contribute to the development of journals of truly high quality rather than impressive indices, and lay the cornerstone for the creation of a mature research environment where the value of scholarly work is not judged simplistically according to the number of papers it generates or the amount of competitive funding it attracts.