Abstract
Japan has not acquired real competitive edge in spite of an immense R&D spending, which is at the highest level with respect to GDP among industrialized economies. Among several reasons for which the once leader of the world economy fell behind the U. S. and some other countries after the late 1990's, the most important is the absence of technology market. Statistics reveal that the Japanese industry has very limited interaction with academic circles, and that government subsidies to the R&D in the private sector is scarce, particularly in the cutting-edge fields such as information technology and biotechnology. These circumstances prevent many promising technologies developed by individual enterprises from being appreciated and used by right parties who really need them. However, recent increase in ventures originating from universities is expected to mark a first step to desirable changes.
