Abstract
Although a variety of cases for coordinators in the industry-academia-government collaboration scheme are presented in this issue, their activities are restricted, as a matter of course, by specific policies that led to their appointments. This paper describes coordinators in the industry as a complementary party in the scene, exemplified by four firms : Sangaku Kyodo System, Venturelabo, IBLC and Knowledge Management, and explores features of their business model. Since the university reform, including the status change of national universities to "independent administrative corporations", will enhance industry-academia-government collaboration scheme, success of the coordinator businesses depends on the consistency of the evolution of their business model with that trend, as well as competence of personnel involved. Coordinators in the private sector will hopefully play an important role in the progress of the collaboration by filling the gap between the public and private sectors.
