Japan Strong in High-tech, Low in Social Sciences

The education ministry's National Institute of Science and Technology Policy surveyed trends in basic science research from around the world.

Citations of about 47,000 academic papers published from 1999-2004 were analyzed.

The 47,000 papers were made up of the top 1% that were cited each year in other research papers…..kind of like an old fashioned Techonrati authority ranking, eh?

There were 10,000 core papers – those that played a central role in each area of research.

The US was tops with 61% of core papers.

Germany had 13%, Britain 12%, Japan 9%, France 7%, China 3%, South Korea 2% and India 1%.

Japan's strengths were in superconductivity, circadian rhythms that affect the biological clock and relativistic astronomy.

Japan was weak in the environment, ecology and

cosmology.

Japan had nothing to contribute in the fields of psychiatry, psychology and social sciences.

In other words, Japan has learned a lot about the high-tech industry but they can't find anyone to tell and can't understand why nobody will ask them…and worse yet, won't try to figure out why either.