Effectiveness of Japan's government sponsored research project - the case of a Real World Computing Program

Abstract

This paper investigates the advantages and disadvantages of a government sponsored research project, taking the Real World Computing (RWC) Program as an example. After discussing the organisation, budget, and research themes, I evaluate the contribution of the RWC Program compared with the Fifth Generation Computer Systems (FGCS) Project. The major findings of this paper are as follows: 1) The contribution of the program has been substantial compared with that of the FGCS Project in terms of the number of paper citations in the first six years. 2) Through participation in the program, the resulting R&D has had a spillover effect on the other research within the company, seemingly resulting in an increase in the number of patents taken out by the participating companies. Though the contribution of the program may have been substantial in the first six years, if MITI will further improve the structure for promoting the program to activate collaborative R&D, the contribution will be much bigger than before.