Japanese educational innovation and its impact on institutional, socio-economic and national aspect – A review of university members for the national university corporation system

ABSTRACT This paper aims to discover the extent to which university members in Japan support the National University Corporation (NUC) system, a higher educational reform introduced in 2004. In particular, it analyzes the perception of university members, as institutional key actors, on the performances of NUCs at the institutional, socio-economic and national levels. Our approach, informed by new science perspective, draws upon two questionnaire surveys which, in contrast to positive assessments from the government, NUC presidents, and media reports, show that many key actors found NUC performance to be unsatisfactory. The results will be of concern not only to subsequent education reforms in Japan but to East Asian countries as well.