Objectives, concurrent engineering, outputs and industrial applicability of Japan´s national collaborative basic research projects

This paper looks at the variation of research objectives, concurrent engineering processes, research outputs and their industrial applicability of Japan´s national collaborative basic research projects. It is observed that various objectives are considered important, projects are important to participating companies but may not be suitable for their industrial strategy; downstream interaction with basic research is insignificant; research outputs consist of more basic knowledge than that for industrial applications, but knowledge transfer to companies consists mainly of knowledge for specific industrial applications; and knowledge for specific applications is considered relatively more applicable in the near, intermediate as well as the distant future