r&d by field 



Because the basic infrastructure of 

 Japanese higher education is heavily 

 influenced by private universities in 

 terms of number of institutions, dis- 

 tribution of faculty, and share of stu- 

 dent enrollments, the distribution by 

 field of total higher education R&D 

 expenditures is concentrated in the 

 sodal sciences, humanities, and other 

 related fields since these are the ma- 

 jor areas of instruction and research 

 at private institutions. Conse- 

 quently, the national patterns of 

 Japanese higher education expend- 

 itures reflect the emphasis of private 

 institutions: 40 percent of R&D ex- 

 penditures in Japanese higher edu- 

 cation are in the social sciences, 

 humanities, and other liberal arts 

 fields (chart 25).^^ In contrast, the 

 United States expended only 6 per- 

 cent in social sciences R&D; it does 

 not include liberal arts and related 

 fields in its R&D data. 



Japan's separately budgeted R&D 

 figures are more comparable to those 

 of the United States because they do 

 not include GUF expenditures, which 

 help to support infrastructure. The 

 share of academic separately bud- 

 geted R&D in Japan going to fields 

 other than the natural and social sci- 

 ences and engineering v^as 8 per- 

 cent in 1982 — a sharp contrast to the 

 27-percent figure for total higher ed- 

 ucation R&D. The distribution of 

 separately budgeted R&D among 

 fields is significantly different in Ja- 

 pan than in the United States. For 

 example, the highest concentration 

 of Japanese separately budgeted 

 funds is in the physical sciences (36 

 percent compared to 12 percent in 

 the United States); in the United 

 States, concentration is in the life 

 sciences (54 percent compared to 26 

 percent in Japan) (chart 26). Japan 



-"More than one-half of the R&D conducted at 

 private Japanese universities is in fields other than 

 science and engineering, compared with only 22 

 percent at the national universities. 



Chart 25. Distribution of total higher education 

 R&D expenditures among fields: 1985 



Medical Sciences 

 (25.5%) 



\ 



Japan 



Natural Sciences 

 (9.0%) 



United States 



Agriculture 

 (4.8%) 



/ 

 All other 



fields 

 (26.9%) 



Social Sciences 

 (5.8%) 

 \ 



Medical Sciences 

 (23.4%) 



All other 

 fields 

 (1.9%) 



\ 



Engineering 

 (20.7%) 



Social Sciences 

 13.0%) 



Natural Sciences 

 (43.2%) 



\ 



Agriculture 

 \ (10.8%) 



Engineering 

 (14.6%) 



SOURCE: National Science foundation, SRS, table B-21 



Chart 26. Distribution of academic separately-budgeted 

 R&D among fields: 1982 



Percent 

 100 



80 



60 



40 



20 



Japan 

 ^M United States 



100 



80 



60 



40 



20 



Physical and Engineering Math and Life Social 



environmental computer sciences sciences 



sciences science 



All 

 others 



SOURCE. National Science Foundation. SRS. table B-22 



26 



