Japanese Businesses Planning to Look to Their Universities for More Help

There is a major push to increase the role of Japanese universities in stimulating economic development. To date, this involve has been small. Expectations are that Japan's universities need to become more competitive and they need to create vehicles to help Japanese companies become more competitive in the future.

As the increase in the number of university-led companies and other forms of private sector university-government cooperation indicates, people are beginning to look to universities as a source of scientific and technological developments. Such cooperation is especially conspicuous in the fields of medical science, nanotechnology and environmental protection.

According to a recent Japanese Government report, there were 5,264 joint research projects between companies and national universities in fiscal 2001, about 4.6 times the number 10 years earlier. The number of cases of companies commissioning universities to conduct specific research almost tripled to 5,701 during the same period.

Among factors driving the change is the domestic economic slump, which has prompted companies to reduce research and development costs.

The question now is whether universities can live up to the high expectations held by the government to became research laboratories for the private sector, as is the case in the United States.

Expect some changes in Japan, which could have ripple effects here in the U.S. and elsewhere around the world.

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