It should be noted that the mother earth is limited and our resent civilization which is supported by cheap abundant oil is about to end. Unable to perceive this "Oil peak", Japan has been wasting a large amount of money, e.g. for infrastructures for motor vehicles. [Oil peak] essentially means that oil supply falls behind demand. Actually, about half of recoverable reserves have been used up, and now world oil discovery is about one fifth production. [Oil peak] also means [peak civilization]. The author has proposed the energy-profit ratio (EPR) as an important measure for evaluation of energies. We should abandon present wasteful civilization.

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This introductory essay briefly reviews processes for preparing the Science and Technology Basic Plans,] which were underpinned by discussions at advisory bodies, interviews with learned people and studies. It describes editorial purpose and process of this special issue. Finally, it summarizes thc reviewed papers and the invited papers by referring to how they relate to the Basic Plans.

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This paper presents the analysis on the global patent strategy of Japanese companies before and during the Science and Technology Basic Plan Periodcomparing with the patent strategy of US companies. We mainly used the patent application data of the World Intellectual Property Organization and the registered patent data of the Japan Patent Office and the US Patent Office. Our analysis has found that Japanese companies increased their number of patent applications in the world and in the United States but that they decreased their share in the world, Japan, US, Germany, UK and France. The analysis has also found that the structure of receiving patent application in the world changed dramatically due to the increased share of countries other than Japan, US, Germany, UK and France and that Japanese companies' patent application pattern did not follow this change. Unlike Japanese companies, the analysis has found that US companies followed this structural change and increased its share in the five developed countries and in the other countries as well. US companies applied for the same patent in many countries and increased their world share drastically in the 1990s.

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The number of industry-university (I/U) cooperative research has increased four times from 1,035 in 1991fy to 4,187 in 2001fy in Japan. However, there appears to be lack of empirical analysis for such a l/U network. This paper shows the analytical results of I/U cooperative research using actual data which have been conducted by two universities. The results reveal that the activities of I/U cooperative research have been received the influence by university characteristics such as university locations, and by corporate characteristics such as company sizes. And the result shows that the "concentration" and "diversification" have been occurred in I/U cooperative research. We indicate the possibility of dividing into three clustering groups in the geographic distance between Industry and university.

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To provide fundamental information for the formulation of the 3^<rd> S&T Basic Plan, NISTEP conducted two major projects for the two years following FY 2003. They are the "Study for Evaluating the Achievements of the S&T Basic Plans in Japan" ("Basic Plan Review") and "Science and Technology Foresight Survey" ("Foresight Survey"). This paper presents the findings from the comprehensive analysis of the three constituent studies of the Basic Plan Review and of the four studies for the Foresight Survey. The first purpose of these seven studies is to provide a basis on which priority science and technology fields and areas can be evaluated while formulating the 3^<rd> S&T Basic Plan. The second one is to identify important policy issues.

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This study provides qualitative evidence of impacts of technologies. Diverse impacts of technologies on society, economy, and quality of life are documented. Elaborated case studies illustrated the contribution of public sectors on the realisation of the impacts. The public sectors play significant roles in diverse ways. The studies show direct and indirect contribution of the public sectors. The public sectors directly influence on the realisation of impacts through (1) Promotions of basic research and (2) Flexible promotions of R&D in accordance with technological trends. In addition to this, indirect contribution, such as (3) Support to research infrastructures and (4) Promotion of impact realisation through coordinated Policies, are also significant. These four public measures cannot work effectively if implemented independently. The public sector should assess what is the major bottlenecks in the realisation of impacts, and launch a set of measures to help realisation of the impacts.

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Today, Japanese space development is expected to contribute to the technology, economy, and society through its practical-use and application. But the following two points are not discussed deeply: ・How does Japanese space development bear these expectations? ・What management is needed for that? Furthermore, Japanese space development has fallen into the vicious circle of repeated troubles in past decade, so the investigation and the solution of the factor are also pressing need. This article catches Japanese space development activities as a whole, considering large-scale programs as a system, attempts to investigate the root problem, and presents the new framework of management. As a result, it becomes clear that the root problem was that Japanese space development system has locked in the present paradigm. Moreover, the new framework of management is provided as the interface management of policy and R&D which executes two coordination acts, "combination" and "decom- pose".

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The scientific and technological activities of China have been growing so rapidly that China now takes the second place in the world concerning the number of researchers and third place concerning the expenditure on R&D. Regarding the growth rate in the production of papers, China has become the sixth largest producer in the world, and the world share of papers has increased by three times since the 1990s. In this paper, the authors will analyze the production of scientific papers and the factors behind the increased production of publication outputs by China. The authors will also look at the number of co-authored Papers between Japan and China. The results show that although the contributions of domestic institutes and foreign institutes to increasing papers remained at an approximately constant ratio in all papers, the contribution of foreign institutes declined in the top 10% of the most frequently cited papers and in higher share fields such as chemistry and materials. Furthermore, based on papers pu lished on high impact factor international journals, the authors show that researchers who came back from foreign countries contributed to increasing the number of publications. For internationally co-authored papers in China, the relative degree of contribution between Japan and the U.S.A. is changing. The relative position of the U.S. decreases and that for Japan increases. In those fields where China's share is higher in the world, Japan is in a higher position than the U.S. On the other hand, for internationally co-authored papers in Japan, China is in a higher position in the higher share fields. Therefore, the Japan-China relationship in co-authored papers deepens rapidly in the higher share fields such as chemistry, materials science, physics and engineering. In mathematics, China's share cf publications exceeds Japan, and the Japan-China relationship is not so close.

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This paper examines the relationship between knowledge spillover and R&D productivity in Japanese LCD (Liquid Crystal Device) panel manufacturing industry. Using detailed patent data, we find some evidence on three channels of knowledge flows: competitors, subcontractors, and U.S. related firms. We firstly show that, different from previous works, R&D productivities of Japanese LCD manufacturers do not increase with the degree of knowledge spillover, whose indices are based on patent citation data. This evidence implies that negative impact of fierce competition inside Japanese LCD manufacturing industry on R&D productivities overwhelms positive effect of knowledge spillover. We also find that the number of patents of subcontractors and U.S. related firms has positive impact on LCD panel manufacturers, which implies that knowledge spillover from subcontractors and U.S. firms play an important role on R&D productivities in Japanese LCD panel manufacturing industries.

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As the same members of East Asian NIEs, Taiwan and Korea have developed from labor intensive economy to capital intensive economy and then to technology/knowledge intensive economy in recent years. Nevertheless, there are few studies using patents to analyze the patterns of technological specialization and innovation in Taiwan and Korea. In the previous studies, the term of analysis has been limited until 1999, and they have not followed up recent trends. In this paper, we extend and aggregate the patent data of US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) ti11 2003 and attempt to show the differences or similarities on the patterns of technological specialization between Taiwan and Korea. The rank of the numbers of patents of Taiwan and Korea in USPTO was 21st and 37th in 1980 respectively and jumped to 4th and 5th in 2003 respectively, becoming major technological innovators in the world. We found that their patterns on technological specialization and the degree of technological concentration are not necessarily same, and the characteristics of agents of innovation in Korea and Taiwan differ considerably, reflecting the differences in their industrial structures and national innovation systems.

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As an increasing efficiency of R&D is emergently sought today, Technology Roadmapping is becoming more significant as one of the best methodologies for R&D management. Described herein this report based on literature research and interview, is the definition, roles, and values of Technology Roadmapping. Also this report typifies them into three different groups according to the responsible entity; Enterprise, Industry, and Government (including Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry's Strategic Technology Roadmap), and general schema along with formulating process of roadmaps on each case are discussed. Based on these cases, two types of modeling arc described from the perspective of collaboration between government, industry and academia: one is DTI (UK) & DOE (USA) model, and the other one is METI (JAPAN) model.

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