It has been long since the term ‘University-Industry Collaboration’ came into general use in the university scene in Japan. The term is not confined to the relationship with industry at an individual level as a university faculty member, but it encompasses the contractual relationship between university and industry at an organizational level. With the conversion of national universities to independent administrative institutions, mid-term plans and mid-term objectives were set forth, among which Social Contribution or in particular ‘University-Industry Collaboration’ has been taken up as a major mission, next to education and research activities, and universities have launched a strategic approach accordingly. The socialization of ‘University-Industry Collaboration’ in academia is progressing. Having mentioned that the forms, implementation entities and implications of the ‘University-Industry Collaboration’ become more diversified as time passes, this paper elaborates on the ‘Evolution of University-Industry Collaboration’. In doing so, the U.S. that has long history of ‘University-Industry Collaboration’ is examined to serve as a comparison. And in the end, the issue of how universities should be is discussed through a prism of ‘University-Industry Collaboration’.

　 University-Industry collaboration in the United States has been revitalizedsince the 1980 s ; however, the post-WWII characteristics of academic research-the reliance on federal government support and the emphasis on basic research-have not significantly changed. Since university patents are embryonic and requirea great deal of effort to be put in to make them marketable, the mere fact that a university licenses patented inventions to a firm does not necessarily lead to successful commercialization. Inventors（faculty members of universities）should help their technology licensing office to find licensees and cooperate with the licensees’ researchers through contract research or consulting. However, there is the possibility that such an intensive degree of collaboration may cause conflict of interest problems, including biased research and secrecy, to arise, leading to harmful effects on university education and research. Moreover, industrial influence on academic research makes it difficult for universities to contribute to a society through research carried on in the public interest. Universities should provide citizens with objective and neutral information regarding advanced scientific and technological issues such as global warming or the safety of biotechnology. If necessary, university researchers have to play the role of “honest brokers.” Researchers as individuals or universities as institutions that have strong ties with industry cannot carry out such a function.

　 It should be recognized that licensing patents is one of the channels of university-industry collaboration, that such collaboration is one of the means whereby universities make a social contribution, and that making a social contribution or engaging in outreach activities is one of the three roles of universities besides education and research. There is a trade-off relationship as well as a synergy effect linking these three types of activities.

　 While regional economic development policies based on the promotion of university-industry collaboration have had mixed results, the United States as a nation enjoys net positive economic benefits from various attempts at such regional development. However, for each individual university, the financial gains from university-industry collaboration such as royalty revenues or research funds from industry are not large enough to support the whole of academic research. High-quality academic research in the United States continues to need support from the federal government.

　 International Innovation Center of Kyoto University（KU-IIC）was established as a joint research center of the university in 2001. The Center consists of two divisions, Research Management and Research Initiatives, and the Division of Research Management offers a portal function of industry-university cooperation（SANGAKU-RENKEI）in Kyoto University.

　 One of the schemes of industry-university cooperation provided by KU-IIC is “comprehensive joint research.” Other activities include “mediation of technology consulting,” “active support for university faculty to set up new business,” “industry-university cooperation on free discussion,” and so on. Compared to the whole activities of industry-university cooperation in Kyoto University, the number of the cases handled by KU-IIC is little, however, the true role of KU-IIC is to ascertain the new patterns of industry-university cooperation and to make them into useful models through numerous practices.

　 Conflicts inherent in industry-university cooperation can be explained by the collision of the two university models ; university as “an industry system” and university as “an academic system.” If both industry and university representatives regard university as “an industry system,” its cooperation becomes a managementoriented research. If both sides regard university as “an academic system,” their cooperation becomes science-oriented research. On the other hand, if two sides of the representatives come up with different university models, they will face issue of quality control or struggle for intellectual property.

　 The essence of industry-university cooperation is to discover new values based on deep intellectual interchanges between industry and university, and to put them into concrete forms. However, there maybe some negative effects in industryuniversity cooperation as well. For first, there is a big concern with intellectual property management. For Second, it is a matter of essential mission of the university. Through cooperating efforts, some articles have indicated that university could lose its long-held fair stance to present critical points to a society. Lastly, if university is expected to be independent as business enterprise, they will soon need to “commodify” their own students.

　 How far does a university want to pursue “an industry system” within itself? And yet simultaneously keep an academic system within? This is the major issue of industry-university cooperation.

　 Defining a university consortium as an organization responsible for coordinating activities among universities, there are now over fifty university consortia active in Japan. In terms of the activities and projects carried out by university consortia, the most dynamic area of co-operation is that of mutual recognition of class credits awarded by member institutions. This is followed by lifelong learning projects which aim to reach out to the surrounding community. The average number of offered to students from other universities within the framework of the credit recognition program is 26．The average number of such students per class is 2.4, but student evaluation of these classes has not yet reached the point at which they can be seen as having a “very high reputation.” University consortia in Japan still have only a relatively short history. In 2004,the National University Consortium Conference was established, and there are expectations that this will result in increased activity on the part of local organizations. Up to now, university consortia have been organizations with strong local ties, but from now on, it is entirely possible that by using the latest information technology, coordination activities could spread across regional boundaries.

　 A global vision is quite important. How well does the higher education system embrace a global view? The best kind of collaboration obviously promises rewards far beyond the ability of single researcher, student, institution and etc. working in isolation. Collaboration is a necessary means to overcoming the tendency towards increased specialization and of addressing problems that cross national boundaries.

　 In fact, the number of students studying outside their home country has risen and will continue to rise, though the students are not eventually distributed across countries in terms of either their destinations.

　 Researcher mobility has also risen rapidly. While it has been a recent trend, there is an evidence that international collaboration in research, especially strategic one with relation to the national policy has substantially increased, i.e. Singapore, Korea, China, Japan and etc.

　 It is that Reich（1991）stated. “We are living through a transformation that will rearrange the politics and economics of the coming century. There will be no national products or technologies, no national corporations, no national industries. There will no longer be national economies as we have come to understand that concept. All that will remain rooted within national borders are the people who comprise a nation.”

　 Nowadays, the international collaboration on higher education has become a part of the national policy which is significant for sustaining in the global community.

　 This paper aims to clarify, in the context of higher education policy, the actual state of equality of opportunity in terms of access to higher education, and to facilitate an understanding of the policy implications of this situation. In postwar Japan, the policy of regionally dispersing higher education has had successful results, and at present, it is claimed that there are no great regional differences in access to higher education. The result of this is that equality of opportunity in terms of access to higher education in different regions has ceased to be a major policy issue. However, a more detailed investigation makes it clear that major problems still remain in connection with regional disparities in higher education. The fact is that there are large differences between national and private universities in terms of the rate of advancement to higher education in urban and rural areas, and in terms of the underlying causes. Focusing primarily on the private sector, policies aimed at correcting disparities and at restricting access and promoting regional dispersal have had a significant degree of success, but regional differences in opportunities to acquire higher education are still present, making it clear that a policy of regional dispersal is still just as necessary as it used to be.

　 “Kihonkin” is the amount of property that a private school corporation should maintain. Although the accounting standard, including the concept of “Kihonkin”, to be followed by private school corporations was enacted in 1971，there has been hardly any research into “Kihonkin” within the framework of higher education research. The purpose of this paper is to present the results of basic research, at the level of the concept and that of actual situations, into the “Kihonkin” of private school corporations, especially private university corporations.

　 “Kihonkin” is added from the university’s imputed income（often called “revenue” at universities in the United States）．According to the rules of the accounting standard, it is expected that the consumer income-the amount of the remainder calculated by deducting the amount added from the imputed income to “Kihonkin”-will correspond to the consumer spending（also often called “expense”）．Therefore, the greater part of the amount of “Kihonkin” is assumed to be maintained by depreciation at the concept level.

　 In addition, by using both macro data and regional data, it has proved possible to confirm on the basis of the following facts that the concepts of the accounting standard have in the main been achieved. 1. The greater part of “Kihonkin” has not been acquired from the debt, but from the imputed income. 2. The greater part of the amount of “Kihonkin” has been maintained, and the maintenance of “Kihonkin” has been largely achieved by depreciation.

　 On the basis of these results, it can be reasonably argued that the accounting standard, including the concept of “Kihonkin”, has played a major role not only in the management of private universities and private university corporations but also in the popularization of higher education in Japan.

　 Can universities remain educationally autonomous? A university and the quality of the education it provides cannot be independent of society. Demands for universities to improve their education standards with a view to providing a guarantee of the quality of their graduates are constantly being made, but guaranteeing the quality of all the classes in a university is an extremely difficult task. Several studies have reported that trials such as faculty development（F/D.） and/or evaluations of classes are effective in improving the standards of university education. At the same time, however, it has also been reported that not all university staff can benefit equally from such trials. Furthermore, some staff show little interest in trials, due perhaps to the fact that university lecturers are poorly remunerated in Japan.

　 In order to improve educational standards, Ibaraki Prefectural University of Health Sciences（IPU）introduced a new integrated education system that aims to raise the minimum level of classes. The system comprises two component structures: the Academic Affairs Committee, which is responsible for the curriculum and the student evaluation of classes, and the Kyoiku-Suishin-Shitsu （Educational Development Services, hereafter KSS），an executive unit which processes the information gained from evaluations for the benefit of the Committee. The implementation of KSS was a key point of the new system.

　 Following the establishment of KSS, the curricula became more integrated and evaluation criteria became clearer. It became possible to measure improvements by using the questionnaires completed by students ; these showed a rise in the level of satisfaction on the part of students and a reduction the number of complaints made regarding classes and examinations.

　 In conclusion, the integrated education system at IPU has provided a valid strategy for improving educational standards as demanded by society, and will be instrumental in allowing the university to maintain the autonomy of education in the future.

　 The purpose of this paper is to clarify the way in which students perceive the structure of the curriculum, and to examine the relationship between students’ perceptions and their educational outcomes. The paper also aims to consider, on the basis of the curriculum evaluation indicators thus obtained and insights aimed at refining evaluation measurement methods, the limitations as well as the possibilities of curriculum evaluation by students.

　 In recent years, educational evaluations have been much in demand with the aim of fulfilling the requirements of unceasing reform of college education on the one hand and accountability to Japanese society on the other. Within the context of educational evaluations leading to educational improvements, an examination of the relationship between students’ educational outcomes and their education/learning experiences is an extremely significant issue.

　 Out of a range of methodologies that are available for examining the above issue, student curriculum evaluation is considered to be one of the most useful. However, very few curriculum evaluations of this kind have been conducted in Japan.

　 Against this background, the present study targeted senior students in 14 universities in order to obtain their curriculum evaluations. In this way, it was possible to grasp the structural perceptions of the curriculum held by students, and at the same time examine the relationship between these and their educational outcomes. The key findings are as follows.

　 Firstly, the results show clearly that even within the same specialist area, the characteristics of the curriculum offered by each university vary in line with the level of difficulty of its entrance examination. Paralleling these variations, differences could also be seen in the characteristics of students’ learning experiences.

　 Secondly, it is clear that the influence of the curriculum characteristics, which determine educational outcomes, varies according to the way in which the measurement indicators of educational outcomes are set up. Furthermore, whether or not students are able to achieve satisfactory educational outcomes seems to depend greatly on their learning experiences in actual classes.