Top Scientists in Japan (2026)
Explore researchers affiliated with institutions in Japan who appear in the 2026 single-year World's Top 2% Scientists dataset.
Historical listings in Japan
Annual numbers of listed scientists.
Countries with similar listing totals
Closest by the number of scientists listed in 2026 single-year dataset.
Top 10 Researchers in Japan
Ordered by original worldwide rank in the 2026 single-year dataset.
| Japan | Worldwide | Researcher | Discipline | c-score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 68 |
Kanehisa, Minoru I.
Institute for Chemical Research |
Biomedical Research | 4.66 |
| 2 | 149 |
Awual, Md Rabiul
Japan Atomic Energy Agency |
Engineering | 4.50 |
| 3 | 190 |
Mizushima, Noboru N.
University of Tokyo |
Biomedical Research | 4.43 |
| 4 | 229 |
Sharifi, Ayyoob
Hiroshima University |
Enabling & Strategic Technologies | 4.38 |
| 5 | 238 |
Kudo, Masotoshi
Kindai University School of Medicine |
Clinical Medicine | 4.37 |
| 6 | 306 |
Tamura, Koichiro
Tokyo Metropolitan University |
Biology | 4.32 |
| 7 | 420 |
Akaike, Hirotsugu
The Institute of Statistical Mathematics |
Mathematics & Statistics | 4.25 |
| 8 | 430 |
Akira, Shizuo
WPI Immunology Frontier Research Center, The University of Osaka |
Clinical Medicine | 4.25 |
| 9 | 465 |
Tokura, Yoshinori
The University of Tokyo |
Physics & Astronomy | 4.23 |
| 10 | 848 |
Ma, Jianfeng
Okayama University |
Biology | 4.08 |
Top 10 Institutions in Japan
Number of listed scientists by recorded affiliation.
Top 10 Disciplines in Japan
Number of listed scientists by Science-Metrix broad field.
How to interpret these rankings
These pages present scientists associated with Japan in the 2026 single-year dataset. Country refers to the affiliation country recorded in the source data, not necessarily citizenship or nationality. Worldwide rank is taken from the dataset; country positions and institution totals are calculations made by this website.
Country position is based on the number of listed scientists, not an official assessment of national research quality. Institution counts use distinct nonblank affiliation names as recorded, so variants of the same institutional name may be counted separately. Historical changes describe representation in successive datasets and should not be interpreted as direct changes in research quality.
Frequently Asked Questions
Answers about Japan based on the 2026 single-year ranking data.
5,738 researcher records are associated with Japan in the 2026 single-year dataset. This is a count of listed researchers, not of all scientists working in the country.
Countries are ordered by their number of listed researcher records in the selected 2026 single-year dataset. The resulting position does not measure overall research quality, productivity, or national scientific capacity.
The Top 10 Institutions and Top 10 Disciplines charts show the most frequently represented institution names and disciplinary classifications among the listed researchers associated with Japan. These are counts of researchers, not institutional or disciplinary quality scores.
The selected dataset contains 913 distinct nonblank institution names for Japan. Differences in institutional naming may cause the same organization to appear under more than one name.
You can examine both views, but they reflect different citation-impact periods. A difference in counts or positions should not be interpreted as a direct change in research performance without considering the ranking methodology and data coverage.
Use the Browse all scientists link on this page to view researcher records filtered by Japan, 2026, and the selected single-year ranking.