Tokyo

Japan is aiming to increase its already significant presence in international research by launching a set of electronic English-language journals.

Last month the education ministry requested ¥180 million (US$1.4 million) from the government, which is expected to be granted by the end of the year, to launch the plan.

The National Institute of Informatics (NII) in Tokyo will provide the technology required for the journals. The institute will also select the fields in which the first four or five journals will be launched. The relevant Japanese academic societies will recommend editorial-board members. Each journal will ask referees from across the world to review its papers, and will be expected to be self-supporting after three years.

The NII will collaborate with the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), an initiative established by libraries in the United States and Europe to reduce journal costs by distributing online publications at affordable prices (see Nature 398, 272; 199910.1038/18504). SPARC will also help the NII to develop a business model for the journals, and will help it to find buyers for the new online journals, say planners at the education ministry.

If the new online journals provide high impact and value for money, libraries will favour them over more expensive ones, says an official from one national university library. But the plan is not just about cost-cutting. “The project came about also because the education ministry is keen to enhance the reputation of Japan's research,” says Syun Tutiya, a philosopher and former librarian at Chiba University, north of Tokyo, who hopes to set up an equivalent to SPARC in Japan.

Ministry officials are playing down the implication that European and US journals neglect Japanese research, but say that researchers are frustrated at having to submit to US and European journals. “Many researchers prefer to submit their papers to a Japanese journal, and will continue to do so, because they're concerned they won't get fair treatment elsewhere,” says Mikiko Tanifuji of the Institute of Pure and Applied Physics in Tokyo, which publishes four journals, including the Japanese Journal of Applied Physics.

Japanese scientists say that a successful journal could be a boon for research if it is able to bring in submissions and peer reviewers from around the world. But they worry that the nominally international effort could become a nationalistic enterprise that merely advertises Japanese research.

The key to the journals' success will be finding fields in which Japan excels, researchers say. “The question is whether the journals will actually be used,” says Tanifuji.