An Empirical Study of the Characteristics of Evaluators Involved with the 21st Century COE Program <ARTICLES>

Since the early 1990s, competitive research funds have increased and grown in significance. The 21st Century COE Program is a quintessential example of one such funds. The program was established in 2002 to cultivate a competitive academic environment among Japanese universities by giving targeted support to the creation of world-standard research and educational units (aka Centers of Excellence). By thus raising the standard of both education and research, the program seeks to elevate Japanese universities to the highest echelons, while at the same time fostering people of talent and creativity who will be able to assume world leadership roles. This paper outlines the characteristics of evaluators involved with the 21st Century Program. First, the research framework, based on previous research, is established, especially: (1) fiscal science of higher education, (2) the sociology of the academic profession (especially academic cliques), and (3) studies of the peer review system. And second, an analysis is presented of the characteristics of evaluators in relation to: (1) gender, (2) age, (3) membership of institutions, (4) academic background, and (5) job history. The main findings were: (1) the evaluators were generally older males; (2) the evaluators' committees included non-academic professionals, such as medical doctors, researchers from business institutes, and business managers; (3) some universities shared a monopoly of an evaluator's chair; and, (4) in respect to job history, many of the non-academic professors once held academic posts in universities (ex-academic professors). Finally, the findings noted above will be discussed from the view point of: (1) the mode theory of knowledge production; (2) academic clique (aka Gakubatsu) research; and (3) evaluation theory, especially for the system of peer review