R & D Consortia and U.S.-Japan Collaboration Report of a Workshop (1991) / Chapter Skim
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3. R&D Consortia in the United States and Japan
3. R&D Consortia in the United States and Japan
Pages 10-24
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From page 10... ...
Here the view is that there can be unnecessary as well as better mousetraps.~° This thread is clear in Japan's antitrust and industrial policies. It is important to note, as shown in Table 1, that in Japan the number of consortia actually formed as research associations was small until the early 1970s.
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From page 11... ...
In contrast to MITI, Japanese firms have not always been enthusiastic participants in consortia, at least before the fact. When the VLSI Program was organized in 1975, the companies themselves were nervous about participating and could not see the rationale for the projector While skeptics point to the gap between the stated goals and the eventual technical output of specific projects, others believe that the most important benefits for firms are peripheral to the actual research results achieved in the collaborative setting.
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From page 12... ...
This notion of two tracks is central to the rationale for Japanese consortia.~4 In the United States, where university-based consortia are the norm, a primary motivation has been to monitor peripheral developments in R&D and to recruit new R&D talented In Japan, where industry-based consortia ] 4 For a discussion of Japan's successive electronics R&D consortia and their evolution toward more generic research, see National Research Council, Office of Japan Affairs, Learning the R&D System: National Laboratories and Other Non-Academic, Non-Industrial Organizations in Japan and the United States (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1990)
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From page 13... ...
See "Minkan Shikin Izon Tsuyomaru" (Dependence on Private Sector Funding Grows) , Nihon Keizai Shimbun, December 29, 1990, p.
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From page 14... ...
While horizontally structured R&D consortia (among firms competing in 20 The Fair Trade Commission of Japan conducted a survey of collaborative R&D in manufacuturing and found that the overwhelming majority involved collaboration among companies that were not competitors in straight company-to-company deals, while research associations accounted for only about 5.5 percent of the cases.
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From page 15... ...
Results: The system prototype incorporated many "futuristic technologies" and was awarded Nikkan Kogyo Shinbun's 10th Prime Minister's Prize for Industrial Technology. Name: Intemational Fuzzy Engineering Research Lab Years: Projected to run for 6 years from March 1989 Members: NTT Data, Kao, Kayaba, Kawasaki Steel, Canon, Shimizu Construction, Sony, Takenaka Engineering, Tokyo Electric Power, Toshiba, Thomson Japan, Toyota, Japan IBM, NEC, Japan Electric Computer Company, Hitachi, Fuji Heavy Industries, Fuji Xerox, Fujitsu, Honda, Matsushita, Mitsubishi Electric, Mitsubishi Chemical, Minolta, Yamaichi Securities, Ricoh, and 19 others Goal: Following the maxim that "technology is for the benefit of humanity," the lab will apply "fuzzy theory" to developing "friendly" human-machine interfaces through comprehensive basic and applied research.
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From page 16... ...
In contrast to most Japanese consortia, which normally utilize researchers from the member companies, MCC employs its own researchers and staff in addition to accepting researchers from member companies. At the 23 See Jonah D
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From page 17... ...
firms in the semiconductor equipment manufacturing industry have been losing ground, for some time, to Japanese firms with close ties to the large integrated electronics companies. There is a fear expressed by the U.S.
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From page 18... ...
Many have questioned, for example, whether the Fifth Generation Computer Program achieved its technical goals. In contrast, Americans often emphasize the value or lack of value of consortia primarily in terms of technical output.
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From page 19... ...
Research associations 1 72 Tax incentives 10 71 Information dissemination 3 70 Commission research mediation 2 68 Commission research fees 9 68 Organizational measures 11 68 Standards 4 68 Patent system 4 67 Patent filing fees 8 66 "Success conditional" loans 8 65 Basic guidance 9 64 International aspects 9 62 Industry -govemment-university activities 7 61 Research facilities 13 59 Human resource development 3 57 Budget 1 56 Source: Results of a survey conducted by Keidanren's Industrial Technology Committee in 1989. Results appeared in Kokogyo Gijuisu Kenkyu Kumiai Sanjunen no Ayami (Thirty-Year History of the Research System for the Development of Mining and Manufacturing)
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From page 20... ...
In addition to technology-related effects, evaluating success must take into account the intensity and complexity of consortium interactions with the members and other organizations. In evaluating the Future Electron Device project, for example, there were important effects in stimulating government-indus~y-university collaboration as well as technical outputs like resonant tunneling devices.29 The Japanese R&D consortium provides members with a forum for the exchange of precompetitive technology and a mechanism for promoting a "culture of exchange" in which there is more interfirm interaction at various levels of the hierarchy than would otherwise occur.
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From page 21... ...
For example, "technical milestones" are set early. There are incentives to show evidence that work is going smoothly, to promote interactions between R&D and systems people early, and to show and benchmark technical output at the International Solid State Circuit Conference (ISSCC)
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From page 22... ...
There is little evidence that "failures" have an adverse impact on the ability of government agencies to organize new projects. In the United States, in contrast, I_ system design urn' process RID hgicicircuit design prototype chp dew early process ir~tegration at-risk design rule international Electror, Device M`3stirg nalanl red ongiriserrig sample dew process irtegration final design rule hiterr~aliorial Sdid State Circuits Canbrsnos patent customer visit (RSD)
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From page 23... ...
Independently staffed, permanent R&D consortia mesh with a stress on technology development at one location, followed by a transfer to the corporate setting where it will be applied. Likewise, temporary consortia characterized by more intensive communication and exchange between organizations fit with the Japanese view of technology as, fundamentally, "skills" that reside in people.
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From page 24... ...
international competitiveness, including impacts of industrial structure, foreign investment, and government policies on science and technology. In considering prospects for U.S.-Japan collaboration in R&D, it is important to consider the potential gains and risks to the U.S.
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