In Kumamoto Prefecture, where the population is declining as well as aging due to the outflow of young people, the existence of youth who support the area is indispensable for sustainable activation, and it is urgent that measures be undertaken to address this issue. Therefore, we implemented project-based learning (PBL) in a seminar for second-year students to seek solutions to these problems. The proposals that incorporated various learning methods and were compiled in collaboration with related organizations received a certain level of external evaluation, but some problems were noted. In the future, it will be necessary to develop human resources that can contribute to the solution of regional issues through a "Gradual PBL." "Gradual PBL" is a continuation from a PBL where all students in the seminar work on common issues to a PBL where multiple groups in the seminar work on their own issues and then to a PBL where individuals in the seminar work on their own issues.

Regional collaboration is one of the important roles expected to local universities, which are often positioned as community-based universities. The activities of regional collaboration and problem solving are often treated within the framework of the social contribution mission of universities, but in reality they are frequently carried out in close connection with the other two missions, education and research. In this paper, we introduce examples of efforts to solve regional issues at the University of Aizu, a local public university, in connection with the three missions of the university. In addition, we also consider the factors that these regional collaboration activities are carried out smoothly in parallel with the three missions of the university.

Shiojiri-City Office and Shinshu University organized a study workshop to learn Reginal Branding in 2004. We have built the Strategy and Action Plan for Regional Branding and started cooperative research since 2005 and have been actioned to realize the plans for over ten years. In 2015, we started a new challenge to promote local revitalization with regional branding and Community-Engaged learning. The population has changed from increase to decrease for decades. The change has affected the social environment and the way of thinking of community, government, company, university, etc. In this paper, we look back on our efforts for more than 15 years, and consider the meaning of output/outcome, and what we should do in the future.

Collaboration between universities and local governments is one of the ways to solve current social issues in which various elements are intricately intertwined. The following two points are important for effectively and continuously promoting this system. ①On the university side, be aware of not only "social contribution" but also "research" (2) To conduct "interdisciplinary research" that goes beyond the framework of individual research areas. However, in order to tackle interdisciplinary research, there are various issues in "composition of research team" and "creation of research results". Based on the interviews with the researchers who were involved in successful cases in interdisciplinary research, we will clarify the process of effective progress in interdisciplinary research by using the modified grounded theory approach.

As activities of regional contribution by university and regional revitalization by local government, there are increasing activities of university–local government collaboration to solve regional problems.The collaboration still has many issues of fumbling for better management to find a regional problem and building a relation between university, local government and stakeholders. Investigation on finding and solving method and relation with stakeholders revealed the situation of the collaboration. For establishing a better system to manage the collaboration, it would need one unified managing organization with double management, one is high level management as what is the aim of the project or who is the project be for and the other is practical level one as how to improve the result of experiments or which is a proper method.

The activity of the Collaboration of Universities and Industries (CUI) in Japan has been increasing since the enactment of the Basic Act on Science and Technology in 1995 and the 1st Science and Technology Basic Plan in 1996. However, the CUI was evaluated negatively in the 5th Science and Technology Basic Plan in 2016, because it has not produced sufficient innovation in Japan. The report suggests that this was the result of insufficient utilization of research results from the collaborative research between universities and industries in Japan. It seems that the traditional Japanese practice in forming agreements for collaborative research contributes to this problem. The purpose of the present study, then, was to investigate the possibility of negative influence from this traditional practice, through a survey of articles in industry-university-government publications over the last 20 years, which addressed problems in the treatment of collaborative research results between universities and industries.

This study aims to reveal the factors influencing universities' joint research with regional small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The data on universities' joint research, university indices showing universities' features and activities, and regional indices showing public support, economic power and SMEs, were collected and analyzed. As a result, the strength of each influencing factor became clear by correlation analysis. Moreover, multiple regression models that explain the number of joint research per researcher and the received amount of joint research per researcher of national universities, public universities and private universities using universities' influencing factors and regional influencing factors, were created. Comparing universities' influencing factors and regional influencing factors, universities' factors > regional factors in national universities, universities' factors ≪ regional factors in public universities, and universities' factors ≫ regional factors in private universities were understood.

In order to provide good educational guidance regarding intellectual property as part of a curriculum, there is a need to assess the development of the curriculum and methods of instruction with an understanding of the impact caused by the learners' circumstances and past educational experience. In addition, educational content regarding intellectual property must consider social needs and demands and promote educational activity. With this in mind, I attempted to shed light on how learners who have educational experience with intellectual property prior to enrolling in university affect the study of intellectual property in university in an exploratory manner using metrical analysis through this research. Furthermore, I also examined the effect on the learning process regarding intellectual property in university. Through this research, I attempt to shed light on the following three points.

1) How the presence of a learner's educational experience regarding intellectual property in school education affects the learning process

2) How the learning process affects the motivation to learn

3) How the learning process affects the motivation to create

As a result, it has been made clear that learners who have studied intellectual property prior to enrolling in university are enthusiastic about understanding the educational content and have an interest in continuing to study in the future and acquiring intellectual property rights as a result of experiencing these studies in university. Learners who have no involvement with intellectual property prior to enrolling in university were only referenced for their attitude toward learning comprehension. Therefore, it was demonstrated that the presence of educational readiness promotes understanding of the educational content and leads to deeper learning, as is the case with studying other types of content.

A comparative analysis focusing on the mindsets of technology transfer office's (TTO) staff supporting the commercialization of university-based research is presented in this paper. The study compares Japanese TTO staff with European TTO staff through which the academia-industry related laws preparation period and scale of technology transfer market resemble those of Japan. The research analyzes three mindsets: mindsets toward cost effectiveness of intellectual property management; mindsets toward commercialization of university-based research; and mindsets toward contributions to local communities. These results may suggest Japanese TTO staff leaning toward the mindset of commercialization of university-based research and have a strong mindset of utilizing from university patents. However, Japanese TTO staff exhibit a weak mindset toward cost effectiveness of intellectual property management and local social contributions.