The Status Quo and Issues of Institutional Research in Japanese Universities—IR Offices at a Crossroads in Universities without Regular University Management

Abstract

This paper examines the status quo and issues of institutional research (IR) at Japanese universities. There has been a big push from the government towards establishing IR offices to reinforce the governance of the university. There are now quite a few IR offices. But they are reported to be on very unstable grounds. This paper compares the US and Japanese IR offices by its mission, reporting line, and its services. It concludes that Japanese IR offices miss the link to the decision-maker at the highest rank. It points out that the absence of regular university management is inherently the cause for this malfunction. It proposes administrators and IR offices work together to establish regular university management. It suggests providing IR offices more stable ground and trust for regular university management to settle in.