Nobel Prize winner says seniority blocks scientific research in Japan+

WEST LAFAYETTE, Indiana, Oct. 7 Kyodo -
Eiichi Negishi, who shared this year's Nobel Prize in chemistry with two
others, said Thursday that the rigid seniority system at Japanese universities
has long been shackles to the work of Japanese scientific researchers and that
it is the main reason why he spent nearly 50 years of his research life in the
United States.
Japanese universities ''have fallen into a rut due to the seniority system, and
this blocks them from promoting research through free and fierce competition
between them,'' the 75-year-old professor at Purdue University in Indiana said
in an interview with Kyodo News held at his home in West Lafayette.
Negishi won the 2010 Nobel Prize in chemistry Wednesday with Japanese scientist
Akira Suzuki and Richard Heck of the United States for their work on reactions
to create complex organic compounds.
The professor said that he has ''a sense of crisis'' about Japan losing its
competitive edge in the field of chemistry and that Japan needs to beef up
education in science and technology and foster excellent human resources to
survive in a competitive world.
At a press conference earlier, Negishi advised Japan's young generation to
study, saying that dreams can come true if they pursue them for half a century,
while urging young Japanese researchers to go abroad as it is important to see
Japan from outside it.
Meanwhile, Suzuki, 80, professor emeritus at Hokkaido University, was surprised
by a crowd of reporters and photographers who waited for him in front of his
home in Ebetsu, near Sapporo, Thursday morning.
He said he has received about 80 e-mails from friends and acquaintances and
that he could not sleep until 4 a.m.
At the university campus in Sapporo, he was greeted with an eruption of
applause from a large number of students, and said, ''I'm extremely pleased.''
His wife Yoko, 79, said her husband returned home in the early hours of
Thursday, drank a bit of sake, and appeared to have been a little tired.
Both Suzuki and Negishi once studied at Purdue University under the same
professor -- the late Herbert Brown who won the 1979 Nobel Prize in chemistry.
Suzuki and Negishi also held telephone conversations Thursday, sharing their
delight over the joint prize winning.
Negishi told Suzuki, ''We were able to blossom in the same field after we
individually knocked at the door of Professor Brown and he instilled excellent
skills into us.''
Suzuki said he finds it ''lucky'' that their technologies are currently used in
various industries such as those to produce pharmaceutical products and liquid
crystal displays. He also told Negishi that people across Japan are excited
about their winning the Nobel Prize, saying that he is honored.
The two did not study together at the U.S. university, but they have known each
other for many years, they said.
==Kyodo
2010-10-08 00:26:41


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