10/8/2026
Yesterday, the world watched the announcement of the 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Japanese chemist Kensō Soai shared the prize with French chemist Henri B. Kagan for their pioneering work on asymmetric synthesis and the chemistry of mirror-image molecules.
The announcement made me think about a question that goes beyond this year's prize.
Japan has produced an unusually large number of Nobel laureates in the natural sciences, especially relative to its population and to other Asian countries. According to the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), by the end of 2025, 21 Japan-born researchers had received Nobel Prizes in the sciences during the 21st century, putting Japan close to the United Kingdom in second place behind the United States.
China has a population more than ten times that of Japan and now has an enormous scientific research system. Yet the number of Nobel laureates in the natural sciences remains much smaller. Why?
Why has Japan been able to produce so many internationally important scientists, particularly in basic science, despite having a population much smaller than China or the United States? I am sure many Chinese people have asked themselves the same question.
I don't know the exact answer. Perhaps there isn't one. The JSPS itself says that no single, definitive explanation exists. But there are several factors that seem worth considering.
First, Japan built a strong scientific foundation over several generations.
Japan deliberately invested in science and engineering after World War II and developed strong universities and research institutions. A scientific tradition takes time to develop. Rome was not built in a day, and neither is a world-class scientific system.
Japan's Nobel tradition also goes much further back than China's. In 1949, just as the newly established People's Republic of China was beginning from a position of “一穷二白”—poor and lacking a modern industrial and scientific base—Japan celebrated its first Nobel laureate. Physicist Hideki Yukawa received the Nobel Prize that year.
Since then, Japanese researchers have repeatedly won Nobel Prizes in physics, chemistry, and physiology or medicine. Japan's first Nobel Prize was therefore not an isolated achievement; it became the beginning of a scientific tradition that has continued for generations.
Second, Japan has been able to keep some of its top scientists doing world-class research at home.
This is an important difference.
Unlike Yang Chen-Ning and Tsung-Dao Lee, who were Chinese-born scientists whose Nobel-winning work was done in the United States, many Japanese Nobel laureates were made in Japan!
A study of Japanese Nobel laureates found that 11 of the 15 Japanese natural-science laureates it examined had conducted their Nobel-winning research in Japan.
This suggests that Japan was able to create research environments in which talented scientists could do world-class work without having to leave the country.
Third, Japan has provided scientists with relatively stable conditions for long-term research.
The JSPS itself points to this as one possible explanation for Japan's Nobel success. Since the end of World War II, Japan has developed a relatively stable research environment that has allowed scientists to pursue work they are genuinely interested in.
This is especially important for basic science.
A Nobel Prize often comes decades after the original discovery. Scientific breakthroughs cannot always be planned according to a three-year timetable or judged by immediate economic results. A scientist may spend years or decades studying a question simply because he or she finds it fascinating.
That kind of research requires patience and long-term commitment.
Japan has also developed broad systems for supporting researchers rather than relying entirely on a handful of superstar scientists. For example, its KAKENHI grants have supported long-running lines of basic research, including work that later contributed to Nobel Prizes.
Fourth, the university laboratory system may have played an important role.
Japan traditionally developed research groups organized around professors, with students and younger researchers working closely with senior scientists. This structure can create continuity from one generation to the next.
A study of Japanese Nobel laureates found that many had been educated at prestigious national universities and later conducted research in relatively free academic environments. The same study emphasized the importance of a research atmosphere in which scientists could pursue their own intellectual interests.
The laboratory is therefore not simply a place where an individual scientist works. It can become a small community in which knowledge, methods, habits, and scientific curiosity are passed from one generation to another.
Fifth, Japan seems to combine intense educational competition with considerable freedom later in a scientist's career.
Japanese children can experience intense competition for entrance to prestigious schools and universities. Many Japanese Nobel laureates studied at top national universities such as the University of Tokyo and Kyoto University.
But once these scientists entered research, some found relatively free environments in which they could pursue questions that interested them.
That combination is intriguing: discipline in education, followed by freedom in research.
So perhaps the real lesson is not that Japan has more talented people than China. Clearly, population size alone cannot explain scientific achievement.
A country needs talented people, but talent is not enough. It also needs universities, mentors, laboratories, funding, the atmosphere of intellectual freedom, and—perhaps most importantly—enough time for good ideas to mature.
Japan's Nobel record may therefore offer an interesting lesson for China and for any country hoping to produce world-class science: it is not enough to have many talented people. You have to create an environment in which they can stay, think, experiment, fail, and keep pursuing an idea for decades.