Report on responses to JpGU members' perceptions of research activities

Abstract:

Society is strongly expected the “science and technology communities” to contribute to the realization of a sustainable society, as academia was one of nine major groups in the formulation of “2030 Agenda” (United Nations, 2015). We propose that a challenging attempt to create a culture in which the research community self-evaluates its research activities and is accountable to the public based on it. As conveners of U02 session “Assessment and Accountability of Scientific Knowledge Creation” in the JpGU-AGU Joint Meeting 2020, we conducted a questionnaire asking JpGU members about their perceptions of research activities and obtained 292 valid responses. In this presentation, we present some interesting results for several questions.

In the question asking whether or not they thought it was essential for earth science research activities, the combined totals of “strongly agree” and “agree,” for “clarifying the origin of our planet” and “understanding the present condition of our planet,” were 94% and 90% of all respondents respectively. On the other hand, they ranged from 67% to 60% for the questions based on the Joint Declaration on the Importance of Geoscientific Knowledge for Meeting the Challenges of Global Society, signed by the AGU, EGU, JpGU and others on May 4, 2020.

In summary, we obtained the following personae. In terms of perceptions of the rating indicators, positive trends are more prevalent among the professor class in their 50s working in research institutes conducting a large domestic project mainly using laboratory experiments and analysis with preferring to “Responding to the society’s mandate” and “the importance of timeliness”, while negative trends are more prevalent among assistant professors or post-doctoral position in their 30s working in universities conducting individual research style mainly using data analysis and numerical calculations with preferring to “Answering intellectual curiosity of humanity” and “the importance perfection”.