[in Japanese]

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The university-industry research collaborations (UIRCs) have been recognized as an important factor of the production of innovation and have been mainly conducted by large enterprises so far. On the other hand, there are a lot of problems in the UIRCs of small- medium enterprises (SMEs) and almost of such enterprises except research and development type of SMEs have not taken a step forward the UIRCs. However, the intensity and extent of the UIRCs are important for the support of SMEs and the activities of economy since the rate of SMEs is high in the regional area. In this paper, Niigata area that is one of the areas in which SMEs are almost occupied is taken up. The characteristics of Niigata area, approaches to the UIRCs in Niigata University, joint researches between the university and industry, schemes to joint researches, and successful cases are analyzed and discussed. These results are applicable to many other areas because there are many areas in which SMEs are almost occupied.

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In order to promote and understand the feasibility of cooperative research between an SME (Small and Medium-sized enterprise) and University, the author in this study analyzed the progress of a cooperative research scheme between a company and a university and examined its necessity. The study shows that most of the cooperative researches between an SME and a university have been initiated by the SME in order to solve a technical problem of a new product. This is called "needs oriented" research.
Therefore, the first step should be to promote "needs oriented" cooperative research, in order to activate the collaboration between an SME and the university. For that purpose, encouragement of talent in SMEs and universities by MOT education must be effective. In addition, a support system and staff provided by the local government are needed to assist a new business to progress from the research stage to the commercial stage.

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In 1995, "Basic Law on Science and Technology" was enacted in legislation by House members. Along with this law, "Regional Consortium Research and Development Projects" was established in the Ministry of International Trade and Industry: MITI (now Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry: METI). This project system aims to promote each regional innovation of new technologies in Japan. Also the system aims to help autonomous development of the regional industries from a technical aspect in association with the "Industrial Cluster Plan" settled by the local METI office. In this note, we present a legislative process before the "Regional Consortium Research and Development Projects" being born in conjunction with economic conditions after collapse of bubble economy. Then, we discuss the significance of Regional Consortium Research and Development Projects that has been expected to support the creation of new innovative regional industrial technology in Japan. As a result, a success case of the research and development by Regional Consortium Research and Development Projects was found in both the Sanyo region and the Sanin region, and it became clear that Regional Consortium Research and Development Projects had been important as the whole Chugoku area. And the factor which brings the success case was analyzed. And it was important that the research and development trend was grasped precisely by company. And besides, after the project end having strong intention to product commercialization tenaciously was important, in addition, we made it clear that the strong leadership in the impeller of the project was demanded.

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A presently used lithium secondary battery was industrialized in 1991, based on the long time R&D by many academic and industrial researchers. In this thesis, presentations of R&D and other data in the Electrochemical Society of Japan and its battery committee for twenty years are analyzed to clear particulars in this R&D. (1) The R&D needs were kept for the very long period, brought from newly-developed portable electronic instruments, (2) newness in scientific principles in many R&D themes lasted over the period and attracted many academic researchers, (3) the technical and developing powers of battery companies, which developed many batteries in the past, realized the usable battery, resolving the theoretical difficulties, (4) co-ownership of R&D results brought from the active working in the battery committee, besides the Society itself, promoted the R&D and the industrialization. These are particulars in the R&D and are useful for creation of a new industry hereafter.

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The innovation structure was studied for the core cities in the northern part of Kyushu, aiming at promoting regional innovation.
Elements to support the regional innovation were divided into direct elements and indirect elements. By means of principal component analysis we found that they could be represented by the following six components: "city scale", "industrial accumulation", "motivation of public sector", "function, charm and diversity of city", "infrastructure", and "safety, relief and residence". Multiple regression analysis was then applied to estimate the innovation index of each city, taking the score of each component as dependent variable. We found the following two variables were generally the most significant: "function, charm and diversity of city", and "industrial accumulation".
On the basis of these findings, we classified the regional innovation structure into three categories by cluster analysis. Some suggestions on city promotion policy are also discussed.

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This study analyzed the White Papers on Science and Technology, and based on the result, examined the transition of the government measures involving industry-academia collaboration. As a result, it is revealed that the turning point of the activation of industry-academia collaboration was the establishment of the Basic Law on Science and Technology in 1995 and the formulation of the Science and Technology Basic Plan in 1996, the importance of industry-academia collaboration was recognized from the beginning of the publication of the White Papers and the government measures involving it were implemented as science and technology policies from the early stage, and industry-academia collaboration is involved in diversified government measures for science and technolgy and remains important. In the future, it will be necessary to analyze the evaluation and the result of the government measures involving industry-academia collaboration and study what is the factor of success and failure and what the government measures should be.

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Based on the hypothesis that industry-academia collaboration activities of research institutes should exert positive effects on the productivity of research papers, this study analyzed the correlation between the production of research papers and the industry-academia collaboration activities that may have influence on the production of research papers in AIST. As a result, it is revealed that there are correlations with the implementation numbers of joint research (0.2&≤|R|&<0.4, weak correlation) and the acceptance numbers of technical trainees (0.4&≤|R|&<0.7, moderate correlation), and there are little correlations with the acceptance numbers of visiting (guest) researchers and the acceptance numbers of graduate students by collaborative graduate colleges. Although limited, the hypothesis is verified. Additionally, it requires careful handling to apply the total tendency to individual fields, because there are some fields that show different tendencies from the total tendency. In the future, it will be a challenge to study the qualitative effects of industry-academia collaboration activities based on the analysis of the contents and the coauthors of research papers.

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