125Japan’s experiences in modern higher education lasting more than 100 years are
not always shared in a way that conveys its deep knowledge and insight. This may
be a disadvantage to higher education researchers and stakeholders in other parts of
the world, particularly for those interested in comparative higher education research.
At the same time, the researchers and other stakeholders in Japan also face the prob-
lem that their issues are not included enough in international discussions. This is
simply because Japan’s higher education is internationally invisible and not appeal-
ing as a success model to learn. For example, although the impact of aging on higher
education without sufficient migration flow has become a common challenge among
some East Asian higher education systems, the literature based on collaborative
research between Asian researchers is highly limited (Yonezawa and Kim 2008 ).
A new approach is needed to strengthen the link between the higher education
research community in Japan and the international community—and especially the
regional research community. In particular, increasing competitiveness within edu-
cation and the research capacity of Asian universities are dramatically changing the
perspectives and knowledge flows in the world of academia. The frameworks of
higher education research now include the paradigms and concepts of international
relations, political economics, and cooperation. In these areas, researchers in Japan
are now actively engaged in research projects within the international research com-
munity, especially in the Asia Pacific region (see, e.g., Hirosato and Kitamura 2009 ;
Mok and Yonezawa 2007 ).
Today, researchers in neighboring fields, such as migration studies (Liu-Farrer
2011 ), science and technology policies (Sun and Negishi 2010 ), and university–
industry links and innovation (Kitagawa and Woolger 2008 ), also view higher edu-
cation as one of their major fields of study. Their research, however, is not necessarily
developed on the basis of existing higher education research inside Japan.
It is also clear that many practices in higher education should now be seen in the
context of internationalization and globalization, while the national context
continues to play a critical role. The language used in the majority of the literature
on higher education in Japan is still Japanese, and this tendency is strengthened by
the expansion of the higher education research community to include professional
practitioners. The question of how to construct a productive link between research-
ers in the national research community and those of other countries is still a big
challenge for the future development of the higher education research communities
in Japan and possibly in most of the other non-English-speaking Asian countries.
A structural transformation of the job opportunities in relation with higher edu-
cation research in Japan also provides serious challenges in terms of the direction of
higher education research. Policy- and scholarly oriented studies on higher educa-
tion now face difficulty in terms of how to increase job opportunities in a very
severe environment for the whole higher education sector in this country. More job
opportunities have opened for more practical areas, such as faculty/staff develop-
ment, institutional research, and multimedia education. The training necessary for
these careers as “higher education experts” is not necessarily linked with the above-
mentioned comparative and policy-oriented research in higher education. Moreover,
increased attention on the viability of Japanese university education in the global-
ized economy has fostered more practically useful research that offers direct prob-
6 Higher Education Research in Japan: Seeking a Connection with the International...