Recent trends in the economy show that not only Governments, but also Regional Communities have to develop their own industrial development strategies in order to be competitive. Fukuoka Prefecture, where a number of enterprises, universities, and research institutes are located, provides an example with the "Silicon Sea Belt Fukuoka Project". This project aims at establishing a world-scale Design and Development Center for System LSIs. The project goals include : the training of 300 LSI designers per year, implementing 50 research projects annually as part of collaboration schemes between academia, industry and government. Another goal is creating 500 venture businesses in 5 years. The Fukuoka System LSI Center, established in November 2004, assists these projects with training, research and by providing incubation rooms. Independent industrial clusters of this kind will produce a synergistic effect, which will eventually contribute to further development of the Japanese economy.

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For the last few years, the government policy initiatives to overcome impediments to university-industry collaboration and to give a powerful impetus to the commercialization of university's knowledge capitals have been worked out in rapid succession. The most notable examples are MEXT's "Knowledge Cluster" Program and METI's "Industrial Cluster" Program. This paper attempts to answer the following questions : ・What is M.E. Porter's original idea of the cluster approach? ・Why the concept of cluster has been so attractive among policy makers around the world? ・What are common core elements of cluster policies, whose characteristics and content have been interpreted very differently due to the path dependency of these policies? It also examines the background and implementation processes of Japanese cluster programs claiming to shape cluster development.

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[in Japanese]

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[in Japanese]

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[in Japanese]

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The Knowledge Cluster Initiative, started in 2002, will soon see the results of the intermediate review for the 12 cluster areas where activities began in the first year. In addition, the Second Phase of the Science and Technology Basic Plan, the promoter of the Knowledge Cluster Initiative, is to enter the final fiscal year of the planned period. The Government has already begun studies for the Third Phase. Although the Knowledge Cluster Initiative has contributed to establishment of regional industry-academia-government collaboration schemes, it has not yet formed real clusters. Evaluation of results and development of future policies expected after the conclusion of the five-year period should take into account the period needed to cluster formation. The intended cooperation with the national Industrial Cluster Project is has generally been successful ; many activities are based on regional characteristics and leadership. Increasing autonomy of local governments is reflected in the movement towards more effective and efficient implementation of policies through more concerted actions of government agencies in terms of policies concerning promotion of regional innovations, as exemplified by the Council for Science and Technology Policy's initiatives for collaboration, and the Inter-Agency Liaison Committee on Regional Technology with the Regional Block Conferences. Establishing competitive regional innovation systems that support development of the national economy and society is an important national goal. The present situation described above requires further enhancement of policies for creating innovative clusters.

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The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry launched the Industrial Cluster Project in 2001, which has resulted in 19 projects centered at various locations in Japan where METI's Regional Bureaus of Economy, Trade and Industry have collaborated with the private sector. About 5,800 small- and medium-sized companies and researchers from more than 220 universities and colleges have been involved in those projects. Examples of the projects include Regional Industry Revitalization Project (TAMA : Technology Advanced Metropolitan Area (western part of the Metropolitan Area)), Hokkaido Super Cluster Promotion Project (information technology and biotechnology), and Bio Five-Star Company & Tissue Engineering Project in KANSAI. While these activities have created new businesses, the Project has not yet succeeded in establishing a world-level cluster. Important tasks for the future include : (1) consolidating the general framework for the direction of the plan as a whole, (2) formulating more explicitly of the goals, action plans and outcome monitoring schemes for specific projects, and (3) promoting competitiveness of clusters through enhanced interactions among them, including that with counterparts in other countries.

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Since the early 1980s, there have been increasing attempts to link policies for science & technology to ones for regional economic development. The term "regional science & technology policy" has come to be used in Japanese science & technology policy documents to highlight connections between the hitherto distinct fields of policy and to emphasize the policy initiative as a base for sustainable regional competitive advantage. In this article, we examine why and how this sort of policy shift has occurred in Japan, and ask whether or not this has induced a true change in policy paradigms. In comparison with the Japanese case, policy changes over the last decades in the EU and the US are illustrated where a significant turn in policy thinking can be identified : from "science-park paradigm" to "learning-region paradigm". The article argues that these policy shifts need to be analyzed as a series of learning and part of the processes on innovation in policy formulation.

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The aim of the collaborative research by industry and academia is to gather the wide wisdom and to actualize technological renovation. However, all those do not necessarily succeed. Various difficulties wait in the process from basic research to commercialization. It is said "The valley of death hides into the process". According to the survey in Kagawa Pref., the success rate in the collaborative research is 17%. The difficulty in the research process often reveals itself in cost, forms, design, durability and handiness than in a fundamental technological subject. Newer merchandise must agree to the demand of market. They say : bigger effort is necessary in commercialization than in invention. To overcome the valley of death, researchers who participate in the project must think of market condition firstly. In other words, they must clearly grip the product image that market needs and esteem cost consciousness. Zeal and effort in the collaboration is also very important. Researchers belonging enterprises recognize more strongly, compared with those belonging universities and institutes, the importance of market condition. And they are more severe on the standard of success in commercialization. (Profit should be considered besides the sales). In local area of Japan, factories are moving to foreign countries, and it is now difficult to expect the factory lure from the industry accumulation ground. To vitalize the area, there is no way than innovate industrial technology and introduce new merchandises. Public furtherance plays a big role in the up of collaboration, so to expand the furtherance budget is the best way to vitalize the regional economy. We must make efforts to raise the success rate in collaboration.

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This paper clarifies the distribution of university spin-offs in Japan by industry, by region and by founder-type, and analyzes the characteristics of each type. By industry, the majority belongs to manufacturing industry, one third to software industry, and a fifteenth to specialized service industry. The university spin-offs of manufacturing industry pursue commercialization of technologies, those of software industry pursue commercialization of business ideas, and those of specialized service industry pursue social contribution. By region, one third exists in Kanto Region and another one third in Kansai Region. In Kyushu-Okinawa Region and Hokkaido-Tohoku Region, university spin-offs show a strong tendency to go to initial public offering and their founders invest largely in their companies. By founder-type, faculty members are involved in the majority of cases and their university spin-offs mostly belong to manufacturing industry. Students are involved in one fifth of cases and their university spin-offs mostly belong to software industry.

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