This paper presents a case study of a collaboration between university research support personnel (URA and industry-academia collaboration coordinators, hereinafter referred to as “coordinator”) aiming to address issues in the agriculture, forestry, and fisheries sectors.

The Agricultural, Forestry, and Fisheries Products Export Promotion R&D Platform @Kyushu/Okinawa aims to develop R&D projects and export business models that contribute to the promotion of exports of agricultural, forestry, and fisheries products based on regional characteristics, The platform focuses on ensuring quality and optimizing transportation based on consumer needs by seamlessly integrating the processes from production to transportation, sales, and consumption. By collaborating with industry, academia, and government, the platform aims to solve issues that will improve producers' incomes and increase exports.

The coordinator plays a central role in this platform. They form a network with related organizations and engage in dialogue with stakeholders to understand the issues and needs of society. Furthermore, they not only collect and analyze information on issues and needs and propose solutions, but also engage in a wide range of activities from R&D consortium building and fundraising to project management. Coordinators listen to the voices of communities and companies, design places where seeds and needs can come together, and develop proactive activities. The coordinators are indispensable in promoting cooperation among diverse stakeholders and the accumulation of knowledge from different industries to solve social issues. Through the coordinators' diverse, active, and autonomous activities, R&D projects are implemented, contributing to solving regional and corporate issues and serving as a driving force for the creation of new businesses.

The coordination unit at the Agricultural, Forestry and Fisheries Export Promotion Research and Development Platform @ Kyushu/Okinawa is made up of research supporters from participating universities, including URA. Since its establishment, the Coordination Unit has been identifying issues in the export of agricultural, forestry and fishery products from participating companies. Starting in 2022, which is the start of the second phase of the Field for Knowledge Integration and Innovation (FKII), the platform secretariat will conduct interviews and questionnaires with participating companies, etc. in order to conduct new research and development. We planned the provision and matching venue as “KYU-OKI Caravan,” with the aim of building a research and development consortium to solve social issues by leveraging each university's research seeds and human networks.

One of the major issues identified in exporting agricultural products was countermeasures against sweet potato basal rot disease, which has been rampant in southern Kyushu since 2019. As the University of Miyazaki had started research in this field in 2019, this theme was carried out by the University of Miyazaki as a research group on Sweet potato foot rot caused by Diaporthe destruens, and we were able to obtain research funding.

The Coordinators Unit of the Agricultural, Forestry and Fisheries Products Export Promotion R&D Platform @ Kyushu/Okinawa1) is staffed by industry-academia collaboration coordinators, URAs and other research support personnel from universities participating in the platform, and is responsible for planning and operation. The coordinator unit decided to set “Food with Functional Claims” which are currently expanding in the domestic market, as a theme for information provision and matching opportunities that contribute to export promotion of agricultural products, and held two caravans during FY2023. While the participating companies expressed their expectations for the future promotion of exports of food with functional properties, many of them also expressed their opinions on the difficulty of appropriately securing scientific evidence for the functionality of food and of dealing with the different laws and regulations related to functional labeling in each country.

In May 2022, restrictions on deemed exports were added, and residents of Japan who are under the strong influence of a foreign government are now subject to export controls at all times. For example, it is now necessary to verify export control regulations when providing technical information within the university to foreign students receiving financial support from their home countries and foreign researchers who have come to Japan under the cross-appointment system. In this paper, we conduct a questionnaire survey on the operation of export control for university faculty, staff, and students who fall under the specified categories, and discuss the issues related to this survey.

We analyzed information on the cooperative research contracts of Utsunomiya University from 2014 to 2018 fiscal years, in order to clarify the situation of University-Industry research collaborations and the geographical distribution of the partners.

Following results are obtained by comparing with the results of same analysis of 2004-2013FY.

(1) The number and the amount of received research funds of the cooperative research projects are increasing.

(2) There is no significant change in the proportion of large companies and small, medium-sized enterprises and organization that is not company, the geographical distribution of the partners of the cooperative research and the amount of research funds received per cooperative research.

(3) The number of the cooperative research projects with small and medium-sized enterprises in Tochigi prefecture has turned from a decrease to an increase.

(4) The state of the cooperative research has not changed significantly over the 15 years from 2004 to 2018.

It is generally known that a “Ba” (“place” in Japanese) of co-creation, where needs and seeds co-exist in the same space, effectively leads to innovation. The “Ba” of co-creation in this paper is a “Ba” for matching events aimed at sharing necessary information. However, a person who has needs often faces difficulties identifying those who have seeds, and vice versa. Thus, catalysts are necessary at the “Ba” of co-creation to effectively connect those with the needs to those with the seeds.

This paper analyzes collaborations between industry and academia, that were generated during the Matching HUB - an exhibition and an example of a “Ba” of co-creation organized by the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST). Next, after revealing the factors necessary to facilitate such collaboration, this paper proposes new ways of exchanging information through such events.

In 2023, there are signs that the spread of the new coronavirus infection has come to an end. In this research, the Matching HUB exhibition for open innovation was picked up to study on the “Ba” required for innovation creation over time. It was aimed to obtain useful knowledge about how to respond to emergencies that may occur in the future, and clarified that the real event will be superior to future events. It was shown that the effect of the coronavirus infection on the events can be suppressed by managing the environment.

This research clarifies the necessity and importance of holding real open innovation events like exhibitions and can contribute to the creation of more innovations in the future.