The International Electrotechnical Commission, an international organization dealing with international technical standard and specifications on all fields of electric and electronic engineering, has established a new commission to accelerate discussions on management issues, in response to rapid changes in technology. IEC intends to secure fairness in the process of establishing standards by forming a consensus among the member countries on every step of the work. This has resulted in a period of three or four years for final edition of a standard, and prevalence of "de facto standard" in areas in which technology changes are particularly rapid. To cope with this situation, IEC plans to offer a platform for fair competition and information. This means a major policy change as an international organization for technology standardization. Japanese technological strategy is now focusing increasingly on accumulation and utilization of its own technological assets. Tasks related to this change include acquisition of intellectual property rights for the technological assets, harmonization of technological standards with the international level, and compilation of databases. The Japanese industry has been making progress in acquiring patents. The two other tasks should be addressed jointly by the industry, academia and government. Hey for the activity included competent engineers and continuous, proper distribution of resources. A social climate in which engineers working in these fields are held in esteem is a prerequisite for recruiting qualified people.

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Promoting academia-industry cooperation is one of the major elements in the Science and Technology Basic Plan. The paper reviews issues and challenges involved in realization of the plan with reference to the corresponding systems in the U.S. The author's proposals include: more patent applications from the Japanese national universities; more efficient use of financial resources by universities; promoting deeper understanding of the business culture in the academic circle; encouraging the Japanese industry's challenge to innovative technologies; and participation of younger generations in policymaking processes concerning science and technology.

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Highly original scientific and technological research, a prerequisite for Japan's survival, needs a new type of research organizations (Hy-Labos) that allows integration of the different cultures of industrial, governmental and academic research communities. In the context of the global competition in science and technology, realistic, practical reformation of R&D systems are necessary. The Hy-Labo is an experimental organization that provides a research environment without restrictions as in the traditional systems, which will inevitably resist any drastic reform, although such reform is absolutely necessary to realize the principles of the Science and Technology Policy Plan, including: flexible research organizations, mobility of researchers, competitive research environment, strictt evaluations by independent bodies, flexible financing, inter-organizational information exchange, social feedback of research results, incentives for researchers and research institutions, and harmonization of natural sciences with humanities and social sciences. A plan of a Kanto Hy-Labo at Tsukuba city ids under planning, as a sort of "Silicon Valley of Japan", which will carry out the most advanced research projects, promote utilization by the private sector of research fundaments provided by the government, and serve as a symbol of national priority on science to appeal the youth. A similar institution in the Kansai area is also envisaged, which will compete with the Kanto Hy-Labo to activate research activities nationally.

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While Japan has considered public research unprofitable and relied upon govern mental organizations in conducting such research, the U.K. and New Zealand have restructured some of their national research institutes as a part of administrative reform. The British governmental research activities have now gone to agencies as an executive sector of the administration independent from the government offices. Some activities have been further sold to, or put under control of the private sector. The New Zealand government acts now as a purchaser, rather than the producer, of public goods, and the national research institutes in New Zealand have been cast into an independent company, Crown Research Institute, whose shareholder is the government. This paper summarizes the management, organization, personnel administration and finance of those new research units. The experiences of the two countries invite us to consider (1) services that government-supported research institutes should provide, (2) relationships of such institutes with the beneficiaries, and (3) preferable organization principles of institutes for public research.

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The deficit in Japanese public finance, one of rationales for administrative reform, is growing serious as in other industrial countries. The administrative reform will involve the management of national research institutes, of which the representatives has been participating in the Administrative Reform Council. A proposal has been made to reorganize the national research institutes as agencies, apparently conceived according to the British precedent. The author has reviewed the administrative systems of national research institutes in some other countries. The survey shows that the institutes controlled by ministries related to industrial policy, as in Britain, New Zealand and Australia, are focus of serious discussions for privatization, while no such move is seen for institute under control of governmental agencies for education and science. This suggests that affinity of research institutes to the industry tends to suggest privatization. Similar proposal will probably be made for the Japanese system in which the Ministries of International Trade and Industry and of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries have their own research institutes.

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The present paper reviews the evaluation of research and development (R&D) in enterprises, with particular emphasis on that in Japanese firms exposed to rapid changes in competitive environment. Existing studies on the evaluation of R&D are reviewed an classified into seven types. The author then discusses new postulations to the evaluation of R&D arising from changes in business environment, particularly in competitive situations. Five new criteria are proposed: 1) Does the R&D realize people's desire? 2) Are the business, products and technologies involved fascinating? 3) Does the R&D have impacts on global industrial trends? 4) Will the R&D produce global standards? 5) Will the R&D keep the edge in severe international competition? The conclusion proposes a concept of the overall evaluation capacity, defined as (organizational capacity concerning evaluation)×(evaluation criteria)×(corporate culture concerning evaluation), and makes five remarks on its improvement.

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Government agencies have been under severe criticism by media in recent days. Actual problems do exist about some government officials and their organizations that do not fit the present situations. However, the policies and efforts of MITI in the reconstruction and fosterage of the national industry once destroyed in WWII should appropriately be held in high esteem. The present paper describes how MITI helped economic growth in the postwar Japan with their policies centered on the Foreign Capital Law, designed for the introduction of advanced technologies to reconstruct and enhance the Japanese industry then far behind the level the American and European industries had reached, and how those policies matched social and institutional reforms during and after the war. The paper also gives a historical overview of MITI's policies on the auto movive industry including planning; technology licensing; import of parts, raw materials and equipment; taxation; and financing. The gas turbine is discussed as an example of the effects of early technological basis on the current competitiveness of manufacturers, which illustrates the importance of governmental policy in the fosterage of industry

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Unlike circumstances for economic or educational issues, strong interest in science and technology of public is not necessarily accompanied by deep understanding. Promotion of public acceptance of science and technology requires a larger population knowledgeable of scientific terms and scientific methods, which also contributes to constructive debates on policy matters. A problem for Japan is its public has a scientific literacy lower than that in other countries. Other problems include the decreased interest in science among youth, and empoverished academic environment. These problems will never be solved without public support. Universities and research institutions should be more aware of their social responsibilities and more active in communications with the public, while citizens including policy makers should be acquainted with the scientific outlook.

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Pieces of evidence were shown to supports that most of Japanese manufacturing corporation almost satisfy the condition where the profit before tax reaches its maximum, though the change in market size was found to shift the condition. The optimized state of management was defined as a final stationary state for both inside and outside of manufacturing corporations operating successfully in a free market. Some of the managerial indices and their ratios appeared to converge on respective final values or functions in the optimized state of management and those included the profit before tax, the ratio of R&D expenditure to marginal revenue, the amount of sales per capita, the ratio of R&D expenditure to the amount of sales, the ratio of marginal revenue to the amount of sales and others. Finally, it was concluded that JSR-RDM Model developed herein before constructed upon the basis that most of Japanese manufacturing corporations reach the optimized state of management.

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Production is a basic function of a manufacturing firm. This paper quantitatively clarifies what production management brings high corporate performance, high growth and profitability, in Japan. The firms that heavily invest in production equipment, keeping a new equipment ratio and a mechatronics equipment ratio high, show high performance. So do the firms that highly utilize their production equipment; and highly use outside processing taking advantage of a network industrial structure. The firms that are self-confident about their product quality and those that believe that the sales point of their products is technical originality and not a brand name show high performance. When diversifying businesses, the firms that target market related areas and not technology related areas show high performance. As for human resource management, the firms that pay good attention show high performance: they provide many capacity development measures to employees and motivate factory workers by making work contents interesting.

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Data envelopment analysis (DEA) was employed for relative estimation of the extent to which the technological potential of Japanese pharmaceutical companies is actualized as R&D outputs. DEA allows taking the different R&D strategies of the companies into account through variable weights. The R&D stock calculated from yearly R&D expenditure was used as the input, and the number of granted patents and of commercialized new drugs as the output. Analysis of the R&D activities of 14 companies in 1977-1991 identified the most DEA-efficient firm in each year. The study demonstrates the usefulness of DEA in comparative evaluation of R&D activities of companies with different strategies.

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Federal government's support in the USA for research and development in biomedicine is mainly managed by the NIH (National Institutes of Health). The NIH peer-review system by which the NIH funds all universities and non-profit organizations to support their biomedical research is described. The department (Division of Research Grants, DRG) that reviews the merit of proposed research is clearly separated from the various Institutes and Centers (ICs) that fund the research grants. The decision to support a research project is based both on the scientific merit and the priority of the IC funding mission. The review of the scientific merit is conducted by a panel of experts under the administration of a doctoral level scientist. The Program Directors who manage the grant portfolios in the ICs are also scientists with impressive publication records. The peer-review process is very efficient and handles about 30,000grants per year. The applicants receive the evaluation of their proposed research in written documents called the Summary Statements, which identify the strengths and weaknesses of the proposed research. Applicants have an opportunity to write in a protest letter called the Rebuttal letter if they feel the review was flawed. However, such complaints are rare and are usually resolved in a amicable fashion. Special emphasis is placed to encourage young scientists. In the NIH there are more meritorious applications reviewed than funded to support them. The number of applicants that can be funded is dependent upon the budget allocated by the USA congress. Finally, scientists who work in the universities and colleges have academic freedom to pursue research of their choice.

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