"Japan Will Cease to Produce Nobel Laureate in Two Decades" says This Year's Laureate Dr. Ohsumi

This year's Nobel laureate Yoshinori Ohsumi, professor of Tokyo Institute of Technology, who had reportedly offered to expend the whole of his Nobel Prize money for rearing young scholars, told in a commemorating lecture at a subcommittee of the ruling government party LDP (Liberal Democratic Party) today, October 12, that the way things are going Japan will no longer produce Nobel Prize laureates in one or two decades.

Prof. Ohsumi appealed to the political party subcommittee the difficult environment in which college re searchers are carrying out studies, elaborating, thus:

"Faculties are extremely busy and can't afford enough time for study. Fewer challenge doctorial degrees, research environment degrading more than ever. Should the situation be left as it degrades the way it does, there won't be any Japanese Nobel prize awardees in one to two decades.

"Students are poorer than ever and can't possibly hang on to their studies without some kind of aid. I strongly aspire for a kind of society capable of rearing our students more freely."

After the lecture, Prof. Ohsumi told the press that he had appealed the members of the Diet to face the realities of Japan's universities, particularly in the area of natural sciences. He specifically stressed the hardships of basic researchers in the college level.

Elsewhere, Prof. Ohsumi encouraged young scholars to challenge the unknown instead of settling for sharing less strenuous studies and told them how he had managed to overcome solitude to go alone on his own and how much he was motivated by encouragement from overseas researchers.