This ethnographic study of Japan's scientists looks firsthand at career structures and organizational issues that have hampered the advancement of scientists and scientific research in Japan. It provides analysis of the problem of career mobility in science, the status quo in university and government laboratories, relations between scientists and lay administrators and the problems encountered by women scientists. contests the view that Japan's relatively poor scientific record has been the product of cultural factors and instead demonstrates the crucial importance of moribund policy decisions that hold back dynamic and ambitious scientists.