Cooperative research between university and industry is an effort toward innovation and social implementation based on basic research in academic sector. According to data from MEXT, so far both of accepted amount of money and number of cases of University-Industry cooperative research in Japan have been almost continuously increasing. In this preface I touch upon a few circumstances in which the relationship between university and industry is not going smoothly. Then I consider what will be the influences of COVID-19 related economic shock on University-Industry cooperative research, referring to the situation caused by Lehman shock after 2008. In the final section I also speculate what will be the impacts of digital transformation (DX) on the environment surrounding University-Industry cooperative research.

This special issue aims to discuss various issues on university-industry (U-I) collaboration in Japan. Utilization of university knowledge on firms' innovation activities has been paid attention since 1980's. Previous researches have indicated that basic university knowledge eventually contributed to economic benefits. In Japan, some indicators of U-I collaboration such as the number of collaborative researches have been increasing, resulting in the expansion of expectation for outcomes from U-I collaboration. Based on these circumstances, the special issue focuses on collaborative researches in Japan, and addresses the issues on practical operations and contracts for collaborative researches, relation among start-ups, and research productivities.

The importance of industry-academia collaboration, especially joint research, has been pointed out for many years. In this paper, the factors of the increase in collaborative research, which is considered to be the reason why collaborative research is regarded as important, are considered. Next, I will examine the relationship between the scale of joint research and the government's measures to strengthen industry-academia collaboration. However, the current government survey data is not sufficient to analyze the factors that stimulate industry-academia collaboration. It is important to acquire the data that enables these analyzes. Finally, I will consider the future of joint research based on economic conditions and social changes.

In order to strengthen joint research through industry-academia-government collaboration, it is important to conduct strategic and flexible contract negotiations from the perspective of prioritizing the use of research results.

To that end, it is useful to utilize the "Sakura Tool".

Furthermore, in contract negotiations, considering to the recent international data hegemony, it is always necessary to keep in mind the followings:

1) to manage not only intellectual property rights such as patent rights, but also trade secrets and data that are "new information goods",

2) in case of cooperation with foreign companies, it may lead to an increase in export control risk at universities, etc., depending on the form of the contract, and

3) the guidelines for government-consigned research specify precautions for the research.

This paper focuses on the relationship between "Pasteur-type" researchers and their startup companies. Through the case study analysis, author found that "Pasteur-type" researchers acquired the sense of value in consideration of use through their career. In addition to the fact that the venture was a familiar and realistic option for researchers, they created an environment in which they didn't need to be deeply involved in management of startups. Furthermore, it was observed as a common characteristic among all the researchers that they had an emphasis on basic research and clearly drew a line in the division of roles with startups. These results suggest that establishing a university-startup may be a suitable option to keep the basic research environment and to promote innovation based on the scientific achievement.

In this study, the empirical analysis of the effect of industry-university collaboration on the research productivity of firms is carried out using Japanese firm-level panel data. In consideration of estimating the model in which the dependent variable is the number of patents and the number of papers, the panel-Poisson model, which is a count data model, was used for estimation. As a result, industry-university collaboration has a positive effect on R&D productivity of firms. Even if the scale of R&D input, the firms' absorptive capacity, and the industry characteristics and time trends are controlled, the number of patents and papers by firms publishing with university are larger than that by firms with no publication by industry-university collaboration. The number of patents and papers by firms collaborating with university tends to be larger than that by firms not collaborating. The same results could be found in the effect of the number of industry-university collaborative papers, the number of industry-university joint patents, and the amount of research expenditures paid to universities on the number of patents and papers by firms.

This paper was an attempt of strategic industry-academia collaboration based on university-originated papers using AI cross-map, i.e.,

(1) International Patent classification (IPC) were given to the university-originated papers using deep learning AI.

(2) With the existing academic classification as the X-axis and the patent classification obtained in (1) as the Y-axis, an XY two-dimensional AI cross-maps were created for precise visualization of the university-originated papers.

(3) Some examples of the strategic industry-academia collaborations were proposed based on the evidence of the university-originated papers.

The precise visualization of this research will lead to providing a whole and strategic birdʼs-eye view of the industry-academia collaboration, and also various data-driven analysis methods. In this way, this research has significance as a challenging exploratory research.

Ever since the enactment of the Science and Technology Basic Plan in 1996, university-industry (U-I) collaboration in Japan has shown the stable expansion although Japanese economy has experienced a few depressions. In this research, aiming to grasp the details of U-I collaboration in Japan and provide new evidences and knowledge to the discussion on policy making, a large dataset of U-I collaboration contract from a large research university is deeply analyzed. A total number of 4,412 research contracts for 10 years from 2005 to 2014 is investigated, and categorized into four types based on collaborative behaviors of university researchers and firms. As a result, various patterns on U-I collaboration have been observed, and outputs from such collaborative researches have been also diversified. For the future study, joining with other datasets such as patents and objective of U-I collaboration will be required, and more precise analyses should be conducted.

This study demonstrates a relationship between researchers' international mobility and the use of international knowledge exchange networks (IKNs) in order to contribute to evidence-based policymaking. While previous studies focused on collaborative research networks and citation networks for articles and/or patents, this study targets IKNs, which the Fifth Science and Technology Basic Plan aims to develop. The study analyzes a sample of approximately 1000 researchers from national universities and laboratories in Japan, finding that having over a year of overseas research experience increases the likelihood not only of connecting to IKNs but also of having strong ties within IKNs. This study also finds that researchers' abilities and research environments, in addition to the type of research institutes for which they work, affect the use of IKNs. On the basis of these findings, this study suggests the implementation of policies that support international mobility and improve the research environment.

Conventionally western countries and Japan led the progress of radiocommunications technology and international standardization in parallel. As seen in the recent development of IMT-2020 (so-called 5G) technology, Chinese and South Korean companies, looking ahead the global market, are promoting standardization activities while involving governments and mobile operators in countries around the world. This paper analyzes the mechanism and characteristics of the international standardization of radiocommunications in the International Telecommunication Union and regional standardization group's activities toward World Radiocommunication Conference which revise the Radio Regulations. Furthermore, it will clarify increasing contributions of the regional standardization groups including many developing countries and global standardization activity of such companies in Europe, the United States, and South Korea to participate in foreign delegations to the conference. In addition, future issues based on the latest trends in international standardization of radiocommunications will be mentioned.