Activities to Promote Young Researchers

Fiscal Year 2023

The 43rd Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society of Nursing Science Planning and Management of Exchange Meetings

theme

Young Researchers Together Pioneering the Future - Sharing Experiential Knowledge from Paper Writing to Acceptance

Contents

　An exchange meeting was organized by the Committee for the Promotion of Young Researchers' Activities at the academic meeting held in Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi Prefecture, on December 9-10, 2023.
　In the first part, Dr. Michihiro Tsubaki, Area Coordinator of the Young Researchers' Group, gave a lecture titled "Sharing Experiential Knowledge in Writing Papers - Researchers' Mindset for Acceptance of Papers" on topics of interest to young researchers, including journal selection and how to write papers.
　In the second part, participants shared their experiential knowledge about research activities through group discussions.
　In the questionnaire after the conference, the following comments were made: "The mindsets of the lecturers were very stimulating and gave me motivation and drive to write papers," "I could confirm what I was worried about when submitting papers," "The interaction among young researchers was encouraging and made me want to attend the conference again," "I wanted the meeting to last about two hours. It was very meaningful," etc.
　The Committee for the Promotion of Young Researchers' Activities will continue to develop activities to help young researchers build collaborative partnerships that contribute to the development of nursing science.

Together with the planning and management members and all participants

Fiscal Year 2018

JANS Young Researchers Promotion Committee Area Coordinator Review Meeting
Proposals from Young Researchers: The Future of Nursing Science and Academia

Committee for the Promotion of Young Researchers

　Established in 2014, the Committee for the Promotion of Young Researchers has been operating mainly to support the activities of young researchers in JANS; in FY2016, with the aim of connecting young researchers nationwide, an "area coordinator" system was established to foster human resources responsible for building regional networks. The number of Area Coordinators (hereinafter referred to as ACs), which initially numbered several, has grown to 25 nationwide as of FY2018, and their presence and activities are steadily expanding, as they are responsible for exchange meetings and young researchers' salon activities at academic conferences, and meetings are held in each area. Its national review meeting was held in Tokyo on March 29, 2019, with 23 members (14 ACs, 2 former committee members, and 7 current committee members) discussing "The Future of Nursing and Academia" for 3 hours. The theme of "Transcending Generations, Regions, and Workplaces" was derived for the development of nursing science, and five major guidelines were proposed.

[Guideline] [Guideline

Create a system that constantly considers and creates the ideal direction of nursing science and continuously communicates it to the academic world and society.

Creation and implementation of a framework for evaluation as a researcher, educator, and practitioner, which can be used in both university and clinical settings.

Fundamental reform of university education and the way universities should be where generalists and specialists can coexist.

Create a system that removes the barriers between clinical and university organizations and allows people to freely move between affiliations.

Flexible support that actively budgets for new initiatives and meaningful research

[Background discussion of the guidelines].

It is feared that nursing science does not have a clear or shared goal. Many similar studies have been conducted, and more active exchanges with other fields are needed to realize diversity and novelty as a discipline. On the other hand, looking within nursing science, there is a growing tendency to subdivide the discipline into domains. The strength of nursing science is its ability to treat the human experience rooted in daily life as a discipline in a mind-body-integrated manner, without separating it into separate areas, and it is necessary to communicate this to society. To this end, we propose that a new classification that is not a subdivision by domain be presented at, for example, academic meetings.

In order to develop the future of nursing science, it is essential to foster the human resources that will carry it forward. However, with the recent rapid increase in the number of nursing colleges, the shortage of university faculty and training facilities has become chronic, and the situation has become serious, with a small number of people in charge of multiple facilities. The burden is particularly heavy on younger faculty members who are responsible for on-site training. Under these circumstances, there is the difficulty of being required to engage in research and to give shape to the results. On the other hand, practitioners and researchers in clinical practice often find it difficult to obtain research funds, so they often have to conduct research at their own expense. In addition, even if research is conducted and returned to practice, it may not be subject to evaluation in clinical practice, making it difficult to nurture researchers who are also practitioners. It is necessary to ensure that the results produced in diverse environments are evaluated fairly, and to promote the growth of young researchers and their activities.

Therefore, in addressing research, education, and practice in universities and clinical settings, it is necessary to establish a common nationwide, cross-organizational framework for evaluating these activities. While individual organizations may have had their own evaluation frameworks in the past, it is necessary to establish a common evaluation framework for both clinical and university settings in order to promote activities that do not remain within the organization. In addition, in order for research to be realized in the clinical setting, it is necessary to create a system in which hospitals have a role in research and funding for research can be obtained even when the patient is in the clinical setting.

There are now more than 250 nursing colleges and universities in Japan. Although all universities emphasize education, research, practice, and social contribution, the reality is that education takes up most of their time, and research is often conducted in their private time. Ideally, one faculty member should be able to practice everything, but in order to develop both education and research as a nursing science while making the most of individual characteristics, a strategic division of labor is needed. We believe that the time has come for a fundamental change in the nature of the university, with each organization developing its own distinctive characteristics, such as an organization that focuses on research and an organization that focuses on education, and selecting those characteristics in accordance with its own strengths. First of all, it would be possible to divide university posts into research-oriented and education-oriented positions in stages, and to distribute research quotas and practical training allocations on a gradient basis.

　Methods of university education also need to be examined. For example, in other countries with large land areas, universities where large numbers of students are studying nursing are offering online classes all at once on the Internet, and students study them in their free time, which is the minimum required level of study. In Japan, classes are offered at individual universities, but the learning system itself may need to be changed.

The need for collaboration between clinical departments and universities has been advocated, but a concrete mechanism needs to be established to realize this. For example, a secondment system could be established, whereby students would be transferred from the university to a hospital for a certain period of time to conduct their own research, supervise in-hospital research, train on-site practice supervisors, and learn about the latest clinical conditions, or conversely, students could come from clinical practice to the university to teach students and study as research nurses or take general education and nursing-related graduate courses. In addition, there is a need to reform the traditional concept of belonging to only one place, such as by introducing a cross-appointment system. To promote such a system, it would be helpful to have a system that would be beneficial to clinical practice in terms of funding, such as a system in which points are awarded for employing 10 or more nurses with master's degrees. It is also hoped that such a change will form a sense of being under the same nursing science rather than collaboration.

AI and other technologies will be introduced to build a system that can reconfigure nursing practice itself. In the field, nurses manually input data into electronic medical records, etc., but by converting these data into text from video records, etc., the work of nurses will be reduced and they will be able to focus on care practices that only humans can provide. Research tends to be concentrated on major themes, but a research support system is needed so that research funds can be obtained even for the type of research that will come to fruition in a few years or decades.

Other suggestions

In order to gather research findings from practice, we need to create grants limited to practitioners and raise the level of clinical research.

Since we are too much focused on our field, we need a way of being and overcoming the barriers so that we can transcend the barriers. For example, we should create a corner to promote our own research and find funding and friends, which is different from research presentations at JANS meetings. We should also create connections at young researchers' meetings and offline meetings, and implement initiatives to create connections beyond the domain, organization, and region.

Along with fostering young people, we will also support the senior generation involved in fostering, and create organic and flat (fair) relationships between young people and seniors at the same time.

The above report was compiled by the former Young Researchers Promotion Committee (chaired by Yumi Nishimura).

The Committee for the Promotion of Young Researchers' Activities has changed its name to the Committee for the Promotion of Young Researchers' Activities and continues its activities as of June 2019.