The decline in R&D performance of Japanese industry has been pointed out widely in recent years. I consider the following four potential causes for such decline. First, the level of R&D investment in Japan has been stagnant since the Lehman shock, which caused a significant appreciation of Yen and the subsequent deflation of the Japanese economy. Second, Japanese industry has lost its advantage in the speed at which it can develop technologies from prior technologies. Third, there remain a large difference in the extent to which science is utilized for R&D, compared to the U.S. and the U.K. Fourth, the level of utilization of foreign inventors and knowledge is low. I suggest the necessity to build an R&D strategy that recognizes both global competition and opportunities for R&D in these respects.

In the special issue, we conduct research and investigation on the theme of local innovation ecosystems from the perspective of national and local supports for startups and R&D, using both quantitative and qualitative analyses. While the analytical method of the contributed papers is diverse, they all share the point that the revitalization of regional economies and the promotion of science and technology are becoming increasingly important policy issues in Japan. Support for startups and R&D is a means to achieve this goal, and how it should be designed needs to be considered in terms of multilevel policy governance, as well as cooperation and coordination among various local support organizations.

Local entrepreneurial ecosystems have been attracting worldwide attention. Based on the author's own studies, this paper focuses on the role of local governments and support providers (chambers of commerce and industry, regional financial institutions, etc.) in local entrepreneurial ecosystems. First, this paper reviews the development of startup support in Japan, focusing on the "startup support business plan" certification program, which started in 2014. This policy supports the formation of entrepreneurial ecosystems, encouraging local governments to formulate and implement their own startup support based on local public-private partnerships. Second, we examine the policy effects of this certification program using municipality panel data. We show that the policy significantly increased business startups, especially in regions with disadvantages for business startups. Third, based on the author's own survey of municipalities, it is found that most of the responding cities offer a variety of startup support programs in cooperation with local support providers.

This paper focuses on the startup support in Kurashiki City, and presents a case study of how local support providers mutually cooperate and coordinate with each other. The study is based on a questionnaire survey and interviews with both support providers (city government and chamber of commerce and industry) and a user firm (Bounce back Inc.). By using data from both of them, the characteristics and contributions of the local startup ecosystem, as well as its challenges, can be better clarified. The analysis reveals that the "Kurashiki Entrepreneur Support Center", consisting of the city government, commerce and industry association, and financial institutions, forms the ecosystem of the region, and that this initiative is highly evaluated by the user firm. However, there are issues with the variety of support measures including follow-up, publicizing supports and how to approach a prospective person interested in starting a business.

Recently, much attention has been paid to startups domestically and overseas, in part due to their effect on local and national economy. This article examines start-ups promotion policies in Japan in last 30 years and briefly explain "Entrepreneur Ecosystem" approach as a rationale for this policy.

With the decentralized innovation policy, local innovation ecosystems have been attracting attention. The role of R&D supports for regional development is shifting from central to local initiative. Based on original survey, this paper investigates the role of local governments and support providers (chambers of commerce and industry, regional financial institutions, etc.) in local innovation ecosystem. In addition, we describe the local firms' use of R&D supports by the national, prefectural, and city governments, as well as by private service providers, and their assessment of such support. The results show that information sharing and cooperation between cities, prefectures, and service providers are not sufficiently implemented. Moreover, we find that there is a gap in the evaluation of the supports between cities and firms. These suggest the need to further promote external collaboration and sharing of resources for cities, and to design institutions that take into account the firms' needs and increase incentives for them to use the supports.

This paper focuses on the R&D support in Ichinoseki City, and presents a case study of how local support providers mutually cooperate and coordinate with each other. The study is based on a questionnaire survey and interviews with both a support provider (city government) and a user company (SAHARA Corporation). By using data from both of them, the characteristics and contributions of the local innovation ecosystem, as well as its challenges, can be better clarified. The analysis reveals that the city adopts an independent implementation method by organizations in their respective areas of expertise, and there is no formal organizational framework to govern the innovation ecosystem. Although there is information exchange among the related organizations, there is a need to share a vision of the R&D support between the city and private organizations, and to further deepen public-private cooperation.

This paper explores tax incentives for business R&D based on the findings from the OECD microBeRD project in which we participated. Using official microdata for R&D statistics and tax relief for OECD 20 countries, the project has conducted a cross-country analysis to assess the impacts of tax incentive and government direct funding on R&D investment. The results show that intramural R&D expenditures increase as B-Index decreases. However, its marginal effect differs substantially by firm size class, with the effect being elastic for small-sized firms while it is inelastic for large-sized firms. The OECD microBeRD project has also examined a factor driving the rise in intramural R&D expenditures. It reveals that an increase in the headcount of R&D personnel is a crucial factor, not due to an increase in the wage of R&D personnel. Furthermore, it also finds that tax incentives exert a greater impact on intramural R&D expenditures compared to direct fundings.

Conducting quantitative analysis on regional small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) presents various challenges because of the limited availability of data sets and analytical resources. Nonetheless, the development of data science has made open data and detailed databases, provided by private companies and governments, more accessible in recent years. Additionally, open-source software now makes it possible to carry out these analyses. This paper offers an overview of these data sources and specific analyses to illustrate. These emerging datasets and analysis tools have made it more practical to employ research methods that were previously unfeasible.