Jxiv, the first full-fledged preprint server in Japan was launched in April 2022. Working with open science experts at the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) - the organization that launched Jxiv - and Japan's National Institute of Science and Technology Policy (NISTEP), Akabana Consulting is proud to have published an assessment of its first 12 months of operation on the influential industry blog The Scholarly Kitchen.
We believe that national and regional preprint servers have an important role to play in advancing open science. However, they face a number of challenges in achieving sustainability and are often evaluated against success criteria that are not always appropriate and do not fully take into account their mission.
Success can take different forms in different parts of the world, and institutions in Japan often take the longer-range view that prizes persistence, and incremental improvement, over short-term results. As with most things in Japan, there is an aphorism that expresses this concept:「石の上にも三年」ishi no ue ni mo san nen (Spend three years on top of a rock) – a person trying to warm a large stone using their body heat knows that it will take time, but that if they are patient and sit tight, results will surely be forthcoming.