Hiroshima University has established the Digital Monozukuri(Manufacturing) Education and Research Center as a new industry-academia-local government collaboration base for research and development, and industrial human resource development related to manufacturing utilizing digital technology. Currently, we are working on co-creation activities with companies mainly in the Hiroshima area in three research projects. In the future, we will expand the field of technical trials by constructing Test beds, and aim for early realization of social implementation. In this report, we will consider the past activities and future directions of the center.

While the aerospace industry is expected to grow in the future due to increased demand for commercial aircraft, globalization is expected to accelerate, and competition in terms of production costs and quality is expected to intensify. For this reason, from 2018, "Intelligent Production Technology Research & Development Center for Aerospace" is established by utilizing the national grant of the local university / regional industry creation. We organize the first industry-academia-government collaboration center on production technology for aerospace in Japan and carry out systematic education and advanced research & development. This paper introduces the features, background and business contents of this project currently being implemented based at the center.

We have accumulation of special steel company related to Tatara, which is traditional steel making method developed in Japan. Next Generation Tatara Co-creation Center (NEXTA) was established in Shimane University in order to contribute realizing brilliantly active University and activation of regional metal industry. NEXTA aims for global center of materials engineering with four pillars of materials engineering under the direction of Professor of University of Oxford.

The Toyama Pharmaceutical Valley Development Consortium was established in June of 2018, led by industry-academia-government collaboration. This initiative was adopted as one of the "Regional universities and local economies vitalization project programs" by the central government in October 2018.

This consortium promotes pharmaceutical R&D and cultivation of human resources and university reform including the invitation of leading researchers from inside/outside Japan. Through these promotions, this consortium aims further promotion of the local pharmaceutical industry and development of human resources who will support the "Toyama, capital of pharmaceuticals"

While the number of university-industry joint researches has been increasing steadily, there are various obstacles for relationship building between them due to differences in organizational culture and mission. These obstacles sometimes influence success or failure of joint research, so it is essential to establish and maintain appropriate inter-organizational relationship to overcome them and obtain expected results. In prior researches regarding with university-industry collaboration, relation-building process such as communication, understanding and trust is pointed out to play an important role to build good relationship and improve research performance. As a result of analysis using a grounded theory approach for interview survey data with 15 university-industry collaboration experts, I found three points are important in conducting joint research, (1) relation-building process considering organizational hierarchy, (2) dealing with uncertainties under respect with the other party, (3) evaluating results of joint research from a social perspective.

The purpose of this study is to clarify the conditions resulting in conflicts of interest (COIs) and risks to be concerned and to provide the knowledge for effective and efficient management of COIs with respect to activities of universities and their members. Analysis of COI policies of the universities in the United States revealed the scope of management of COIs and the effect of bias induced by university-industry financial relationships on decision making by universities and researchers. Whereas, analysis of reasons for retraction of scientific research papers revealed that unsatisfactory management of COIs affected the research integrity, actualized the risks induced by bias and COIs, and resulted in concerns or issues about data, image or results.

In order to clarify the situation of industry-academia collaboration of national universities in rural areas, we investigated cooperative research contract information of 17 national universities and 2 national colleges, and analyzed the geographical distribution of cooperative research partners. In most of them, the partners of cooperative research are large enterprises, followed by small and medium-sized enterprises. Many of the large enterprises of the partners are located in the Kanto region. In cooperative research with small and medium-sized enterprises, the percentages of companies in the prefectures where the universities are located are high, and the percentages in Kanto, Kinki and Tokai regions are not low.

We analyzed the factors that affect the number and the amount of received research funds of cooperative research projects between universities and companies in the prefectures where the universities are located for the 17 universities. As a result, the factors are considered to be the number of companies, the number of patent applications, the product shipments, and the value added of the prefectures.

In order to clarify characteristics and issues of collaborative research between academia and industry in a field of artificial intelligence (AI), conditions of collaborative research for 5 years (2015-2019) were investigated at Ehime University, Shimane University, and University of Miyazaki. The amount and number of AI-related collaborative research increased in 5 years. The increase rate was 3.1 times in the number and 5.9 times in the amount. The contract partners were major in "small and medium-sized enterprises". The types of industry were major in "information and communications" and "scientific research, professional and technical services". In terms of AI technical classification, "video and image processing" and "information in general" were the most in the number. The researchers at the universities involved were mostly belonging to faculty of "science and engineering". The rate of prefectural enterprises for each university was 60% at Ehime University, 31% at Shimane University, and 19% at University of Miyazaki. Regional national universities were expected to conduct following in the collaborative research in the AI field: collaboration with industries that are expected to grow, development of contracts and agreements adapted to the field, cultivation of human resources, and promotion of social implementation in each region.

In this thesis is a study of the current state of industry-government-academia collaboration in the Humanities and Social Sciences. While it is desirable to utilize knowledge of the Humanities and Social Sciences, some cases in the field of Humanities and Social Sciences have been found, but no sufficient consideration has been given. As a result, the amount and number of joint research in the Humanities and Social Sciences field was 3% of the total, and among the specialist researchers at public institutions in Japan, 3% of researchers were in the field of research, 1.3% were researchers in the field of Humanities and Social Sciences at companies, and 8% were coordinator of industry-government-academia collaboration in the field of Humanities and Social Sciences at universities. Compared to the Science and engineering field, the Humanities and Social Sciences field invests less resources and has a support system. This point of view is considered as something that would be helpful as basic data of the time to promote the future of Humanities and Social Sciences industry, government and academia cooperation.

SBIR system in Japan has achieved certain results such as totally subsidizing 14 trillion yen for 94,000 SMEs since the system was founded in 1999. On the other hand, Various institutional issues have become apparent, such as the portfolio issue that the subsidies of some ministries account for a large proportion, and the issue that uniform rules for grants is not maintained. In addition, in recent years, due to the diversification of needs for solving social issues and the fragmentation and complexity of science and technology, the importance of creating innovation through support to SMEs, mainly startup companies, has been increasing.

With all these matters in mind, at the 201st ordinary session of the Diet, The Act Partially Amending Basic Act on Science and Technology and Related Acts was enacted, and SBIR system in Japan was reviewed to contribute to the promotion of innovation by startup companies and SMEs. In particular, the position of the system as an innovation policy was clarified, and some subsidies will be operated by each ministry under the uniform rules such as setting issues based on policy challenges and needs of public procurement by each ministry and adopting a gated process with 3 phases.

In the future, we hope that new SBIR system in Japan will contribute to innovation in Japan by being steadily operated and making continuous improvements.