Funding woes threaten Nobel-winning journal
Written by changthai11 on Saturday, October 11th, 2008
NOBEL LAUREATE DISCUSSION / Funding woes threaten Nobel-winning journal
The Yomiuri Shimbun
KYOTO–The scientific journal that introduced the thesis that won this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics, as well as the thesis that won the 1965 prize in the same field, is facing financial difficulties that may force it to close.
The English-language physics journal “Progress of Theoretical Physics” was founded in 1946 by Dr. Hideki Yukawa, Japan’s first Nobel laureate, to disseminate research conducted in Japan to the rest of the world.
According to its editor, the journal will be forced to fold in the next few years if additional funding is not obtained.
Kyoto Sangyo University Prof. Toshihide Masukawa and Makoto Kobayashi, executive director of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, were on Tuesday awarded the 2008 Nobel Prize in the field for a thesis introduced in the journal in 1973.
The thesis was quoted 5,264 times last year by researchers across the globe.
The journal’s second issue introduced a thesis by Dr. Shinichiro Tomonaga, which won the 1965 Nobel Prize in Physics.
The journal publishes 12 issues a year, and, despite having a circulation of only 800, is read in the United States, Europe and elsewhere.
Masukawa expressed concern over the journal’s future at a press conference Wednesday, saying, “It’s crucial to have an internationally respected scientific journal that is run mainly by Japanese academics, so that research [conducted in the nation] will be objectively recognized overseas.”
Masukawa called for a subsidy system to be introduced to ensure the journal’s ongoing publication.
The annual cost of publishing the journal is about 60 million yen, half of which was paid by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science until a few years ago, but the society’s contributions have since dwindled to 16 million yen.
Taichi Kugo, editor of the journal and also a professor at Kyoto University, said: “We’ve managed to continue publishing thanks to income from subscriptions and donations, but we run at a yearly deficit of 1 million yen. We’ve been covering those losses from a reserve fund, but without further subsidies we’ll be forced to cease publication in a few years.”
