Among the scientific papers included in the Nature Index, the proportion of papers posted from Japan declined by 6% from 2012 to 2016. The number of papers by Japanese authors has decreased by 8.3%. In addition, the contribution of Japan in the same period has declined by 19.6%. As a cause of this, Nature cites that the position of Japanese researchers that can work full-time is decreasing, and that the R & D expenditure of the Japanese government was almost flat after 2001
Nature Index 2017 Japan Vol. 543 No. 7646_supp ppS1-S40
Nature Index sees stall of Japan’s scientific research in the last decade