This chapter charts critical issues in the recent history of international faculty mobility in Japan, characterized by a shift from a tangential concern within the broader internationalization agenda to a more prominent policy issue in the contemporary landscape. While the forty-year history of state-sponsored internationalization in Japan has been marked by a rhetorical emphasis on international student mobility, at the same time, the international component of the academic community of Japanese universities has quietly grown more than fourfold since 1980. The demonstrable practical effect of the presence of foreign faculty is increasingly evident in statistics and on campuses. Moreover, there is renewed pressure for native Japanese faculty members to spend time abroad, returning with international experiences and contacts to transform their academic practice. Both foreign-born faculty and returning Japanese academics are now recognized as key contributors to universities across Japan and occupy increasingly diverse roles therein. To provide a comprehensive overview of these emerging trends, the discussion in this chapter is structured around four guiding questions: (1) how has the population of foreign-born faculty in Japan changed? (2) what contributions do foreign-born faculty make? (3) what does research tell us about the experience of working in Japanese universities as a foreign-born academic? and (4) to what extent do Japanese faculty with international academic experience contribute to the “internationalization” of the academic community in Japan? This discussion is followed by an image for a brighter future for faculty mobility which prioritizes a fully integrated academic community beyond binary distinctions between local and international.

Introduction

Policies designed to internationalize Japanese universities have historically been marked by a focus on international student mobility. Indeed, the goals of attracting 100,000 and, subsequently, 300,000 students from abroad were the de facto headlines for comprehensive reforms and have become synonymous with internationalization since the 1980s. Despite some setbacks, Japanese higher education has been successful in the pursuit of these goals. The 100,000 students target was attained in 2003, and subsequent diversification of inbound student mobility to a broader range of providers means that the 300,000 students target was attained in 2019–2020.