Effect of R&D programmes on the formation of university–industry–government networks: comparative analysis of Japanese R&D programmes

Abstract

Japan has established several R&D programmes since the 1980s aimed at basic and fundamental R&D in response to the criticism of its free-riding on Western basic research. In some of these programmes, the linkages between university, industry and government have been a requirement for formation or selection of projects. In this paper, it is investigated how five Japanese R&D programmes promote inter-sectoral and inter-institutional networks. The result shows that the projects of the Next Generation Programme for pre-competitive research formed few but multiple university–industry–government linkages within each project by designing the complementary relationships among the participants. Linkages between private companies were not much formed except for the projects of the ERATO Programme, in which researchers temporarily leave their own institutes. The funds for more basic research was found to have little effect on the formation of networks within projects but do form the linkages outside the projects.