123participated in the initial international dialogue regarding the conceptualization of
the internationalization of higher education, and he published his findings in
Japanese. Japanese researchers also started to publish articles in English on Japanese
and Asian higher education in collaboration with international researchers (Kaneko
and Teichler 1997 ; Altbach and Umakoshi 2004 ; Altbach and Ogawa 2002 ;
Ninomiya et al. 2009 ). Because the Japanese economy had established its leading
status by the end of the 1980s, some research groups in Japan started to participate
more actively in international projects. Arimoto and the RIHE, Hiroshima University,
participated in international surveys on academic professions in 1992 and in 2007
and also initiated another survey on academic professions in Asia in 2011. Arimoto
edited a book series based on the Changing Academic Profession (CAP) survey and
contributed to a comparative framework along with international leaders in this field
(Teichler et al. 2013 ; Arimoto et al. 2015 ). Yoshimoto participated in two interna-
tional surveys of university graduates in collaboration with European research
groups: Careers after Higher Education: A European Research Study (CHEERS)
and The Flexible Professional in the Knowledge Society (Reflex) study (Yoshimoto
2002 ; Allen et al. 2007 ). Yamada (2014a, b) implemented large-scale surveys on
student learning and compared the results to surveys in the United States.
Regarding internationalization of higher education, Japan established a distin-
guished position in Asia as a country receiving a significant number of students—
again, mainly from Asia—by the end of the 1990s. The policies and practices for the
internationalization of Japanese higher education were introduced to the interna-
tional research community by Umakoshi ( 1997 ) and Horie ( 2002 ) as trials for the
internationalization of higher education of a non-Western industrial country.
However, most of the research and surveys on the internationalization of higher
education have been published in Japanese—again, mainly for the domestic audi-
ence (see, e.g., Gondo 1992 ).
Growing Attention to Asian Higher Education
From the mid-2000s, the emergence of international university rankings and an
improvement in the international reputation of Asian universities changed the direc-
tion of research on the internationalization of higher education. In particular, for
experts in other countries, Japan appeared to have big challenges regarding interna-
tionalization at home, especially regarding active contributions to the international
research community in the fields of the humanities and social sciences. Yonezawa
( 2007 ) described this change as a challenge to establishing world-class universities
and also hierarchical diversities on the perspectives and practices of international-
ization among different types of universities in Japan. At the same time, Kuroda
et al. ( 2014 ) conducted a survey of the top universities in East and Southeast Asia
and highlighted the increasing academic and student exchanges within the Asian
region.
6 Higher Education Research in Japan: Seeking a Connection with the International...