Strengthening the competitive position of the Japanese industry has been a common target for industry, academia and the government. While much has been attained in national and international cooperation programs in the past we should hope for the industry to take a more determined position on this issue. A permanent body will be of great help in fortifying the collaboration linkage. Outcome of the collaboration must be evaluated by criteria on an international level. We also hope that the new Administration Evaluation Law will be effective for promoting the collaboration. Last but not least education and training of persons capable of grand design on the background of knowledge of actual situation is essential to achieve the goal of the collaboration.

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German universities has recently been starting 2.5 times more new businesses than American counterparts. The number of biotechnology firms in Germany has exceeded that in Britain and now at the top in Europe. A major factor in these developments is the German Government's initiative in strategic development of venture startup models. The present paper discusses two examples of the policy: EXIST (startup of regional businesses from the academic circle) and BioRegio (establishment of biotechnology clusters). EXIST introduced business culture into universities, which have traditionally been associated with administration, by establishing relevant courses, to form regional networks supporting business startup in cooperation with local governments and business circles. Activities through the network include business planning competitions, consulting on business startup, contact with financial organizations, and publicity. BioRegio has also created regional networks in areas most promising for development of bio industry clusters to support local activities. Sizable amounts of the Federal grants for research and development were targeted on those areas. The two projects share features such as competition system to foster and select businesses on which support is focused, and autonomy of the areas. The German policy suggests much for planning venture and regional economic policies in Japan.

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Governmental policies to promote academia-industry cooperation in Japan have been rapidly expanded in recent years. These policies alone, however, does not guarantee actual enhancement in technology transfer. What are the factors that impede technology transfer from universities to industry? A nationwide survey conducted by Tsukuba University in September 1999 has showed that details of most individual projects remain obscure because they were realized under personal connection of researchers with businesses. It has also revealed underdeveloped channels between universities and business companies, complicated procedural requirements that burden researchers involved, and restriction in hiring young researchers for commissioned research projects. A more fundamental factor is, however, that research results obtained in Japanese universities are generally less industry-oriented in comparison with situations, say, in the U.S. A suggestion to solve this problem is to recruit academic researchers interested in specific industrial needs and organize joint research projects involving the relevant companies. This must be complemented by incentives for universities for collaboration with industry and promotion of TLO activities.

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The authors have been examining problems in technology transfer from universities and national and regional research laboratories to smaller local businesses in three aspects: (1) Ways of providing research results of the organizations (2) Views and behavior of the companies with respect to technology management (3) Cooperation of the institutes with businesses for technology transfer The present report reviews our results regarding the first aspect above. The study revealed that regional research institutes need to expand their capability in technical consulting by cooperation with other technology-intensive organizations to respond to needs enhanced by changes in industry structure. This cooperation will also help transfer of more advanced technologies to small- and medium-sized businesses. For example, Technology Research Institute of Osaka Prefecture resorts to external organizations for about 2% of its consulting items. While such cooperation will bring immediate advantages to all of the parties concerned for subjects related to manufacture or assembly, some promotion measures are needed for transfer of more advanced technologies.

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It has recently been emphasized that citizens should be more involved in policy and decision making in both local and national levels. Many issues ranging from individual to regional, national or even global level involves scientific and technological problems. Ways of participation of citizens in science and technology has thus become a focus of interest. Although general public has tremendous difficulties in understanding modern science and technology, there seems to exist a consensus on the necessity of people's involvement in them in some form or other. Accelerated information disclosure, increased use of the public comment system, and local referendums can be seen as supported by such a consensus. This paper discusses possibilities and necessity of citizen participation in science and technology and suggests a novel type of participation. It also describes the Consensus Conferences in 1998 and 1999, in whose organization the author was involved, and analyzes the results.

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Recently, universities are expected to contribute more directly to society by helping to create new industries, but the collaboration between universities and industry is not active enough in Japan. On the other hand, in the United Kingdom, the collaboration between universities and industry become active by the policy measure which promote collaborative research (e.g. LINK, ROPA, Foresight LIKK-Award), technology transfer and creation of spin-of companies. This paper conducts survey on the policy measure to promote collaboration between universities and industry, current situation of collaboration and the collaboration system of research universities (Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial Collage) in the United Kingdom. Then it analyze the mechanism to enhance the collaboration. This paper also discusses the policy measure of universities' contribution to society by helping to create new industries in Japan.

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The purpose of this paper is to explore the main functions of R&D engineers for leading innovative research and development. Then, the method for effective training of R&D engineers is analyzed. Much more importance is attached to the so-called "concept-producer type engineers" who bear projects of research and development. The way of training which are effective for these concept-producer type engineers can be summarized in three points as following. The first is an establishment of opportunity to train young personnel with the quality early and intentionally. The second is rotation to other departments such as management planning, the marketing part, and so on. The third is to send R&D engineers to the laboratories of excellent management in and outside the company.

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The aim of this study is to examine the method of policy formation by the total cost of life cycle (TCLC), which is originated as rational tools for policy decision-making. The case of technologies of electricity generation was taken, and their TCLC was estimated on the basis of various energy-related cost data. This estimation informs us which technologies are more competitive than others and which factors of TCLC are important for us as policy targets to challenge. It is possible to use this indicator of TCLC as a tool for the formation of consensus in our society.

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Many products in communication industry and electronics industry can be recognized as a system, and product system is manufactured by business system that include customer, supplier, sales department, and service department I am interested in pursuing what kind of relationship does exit between product system and business system. For example, is there correlation between them? As a first step, I try to build an analytical framework for the relationship through literature review. Next we execute questioner survey for the engineers of three kind of product system that has different architecture and finally conduct discriminate analysis. The result seems to imply the existence of correlation between product system and business system.

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