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We’ve found someone who has a wealth of advice for questions like these. There’s a professor at Kyoto University who has been involved with industry-academia collaboration in organizations on both sides of the equation. We asked about what’s happening recently in industry-academia collaborative research, as well as issues that need to be addressed.

Use Companies as Mirrors

Kuwajima: First, I think that now’s a time when the relationship between university scholars and industry is changing. If a scholar finds themself in a siloed situation, with professors on top, students below, and conferences full of only people you know, I would encourage them to try to get to know companies in a variety of fields—give yourself some distance, in a sense—and think of industry as a mirror that reflects your own research. However, when building such relationships, I’d propose going through someone that acts as a buffer before directly getting in touch with companies.

I think in some ways people are raising the hurdles for themselves, thinking that collaborative industry-academia research has to be useful right away, or that it must be something that contributes to a company or society. Having a buffer person who knows companies and universities and is also easy to talk with (about stress in research, what kind of work to do in the first place, etc.) will lead to industry-academia collaboration that is meaningful for companies and universities, and also change these kind of biased views.

I can see how the common ground would shrink when people who only know the research community interact directly with people in industry. Certainly, one option in order to expand one’s purview in research is to interact with companies through a buffer person.

Businesses Want University Scholars to Pursue Scientific Truths

I feel that businesses are also not presenting themselves properly to scholars. Despite recently businesses really wanting university scholars to pursue scientific truths, I feel like this isn’t really understood by scholars. These days there are fewer companies that are engaging in R&D that starts with true fundamentals, and it’s said that it’s difficult at companies to even find out what to work on—what it is that we don’t understand. In this sense, I think that what businesses expect from universities is different now.

On the other side, there are scholars pushing ahead with industry collaboration in order to expand their purview. However, it’s difficult to figure out how to actually incorporate such collaboration into one’s own research. Where should people start?

Kuwajima: What about cultivating one’s critical perspective, in a positive sense, of companies? For example, university scholars could ask whether there are issues or concerns in the research carried out at them.

There are some scholars who, while answering company’s desires, unravel scientific truths and turn this work into articles. It’s the opposite scheme—turning company research into one’s own research by looking at it critically as material. In a sense, it seems like one would be able to cultivate this critical perspective regarding company research when one’s young. Even just based on what I’ve seen, I feel that the relationship between industry and academia has changed greatly, and it will probably change in more in the future. Scholars at universities, particularly young ones, are probably worried whether they’ll be able to have a career of their own, and, not knowing how their relationships with companies will turn out, young people can’t really take the leap into industry-academia collaboration.

Kuwajima: Looking at the investment situation surrounding research currently in this country, I think that investment from industry is actually one way to be able to engage in one’s desired research without worrying about strange noise. While it’s said one can do the research one wants with JSPS grants-in-aid for scientific research, and a bunch of people who know each other are trying to do it all fairly, it’s only one of the national government’s projects. With the low selection rate and maldistribution between universities, it’s probably hard for things to go as one wants. However, looking at things from a macro perspective, while Japan’s companies use a massive amount of research and development funds, it also seems like the idea of investing in the fundamental research that they need has not fully taken root.

There are some projects in which young researchers will visit companies and present their research. They get feedback and companies get ideas.

Kuwajima: Even if it’s fundamental research that’ll become a business seedling ten or twenty years in the future, there are many companies that will be sympathetic if one can communicate the size of its impact and also show a thought-out path. It’s okay to be mistaken at first.

Do Companies Want to Nurture University Scholars?

With regard to that relationship—do you think that companies have the desire to nurture or cultivate university scholars? There is an increasing number of companies who want to contribute to universities as part of their CSR¹ or SDGs² work.

Kuwajima: With regard to SDGs, I think companies in Japan actually have cold feet. Since their budget will be cut off if they don’t produce results, in some cases company researchers will use universities in order to survive within their company. Also, I see the recent SDGs efforts as in the end being the reaction of primarily developed countries hitting the limits of capitalism and not being able to secure stable profits from throughout the world. So the national government also panics and reconsiders the relationship between Society 5.0³ and SDGs. Then companies are brought along and sometimes draw closer to universities so that they won’t lose their own profits. Particularly in the case of younger researchers, it’s better to work with buffer people to determine if it’s this kind of shallow case. They can also point out parts that need further work in preparation for carrying out research.

A Story of the Past: “Just Go to Matching Events and It’ll All Work Out”

There are matching events for university research seeds held to foster industry-academia collaboration.

Kuwajima: I don’t think that one can expect this style to lead to collaboration. Things working out in the end as long as one just goes to a matching event is a thing of the past. If it’s just matching, computers can do it, and the companies that wouldn’t have known about certain research unless they had such an opportunity to meet scholars are not really that serious. Even if things did develop into joint research with such a company, there’s a high chance that they won’t use their brains when they hit obstacles and will ask the university to do something else. There might be a lot of companies who say that this is only natural given that they’re supplying the money. With that said, considering that company’s R&D environments also have a bunch of problems, rather than a connect-the-dots approach in which university seeds and research needs are linked, better approaches include first engaging in discussions while looking at the university’s seeds as a whole, or taking time to communicate that there might be different ways of thinking about the issue at hand besides joint research.

How to Fill Field and Timeline Gaps?

While companies have always wanted to incorporate university research seeds, recently one also finds, for example, companies looking to universities to create future society scenarios. Also, it seems like overseas, sometimes instead of projects beginning in response to a company’s needs, the university informs the companies of its seeds and proposes projects.

Kuwajima: With regard to Kyoto University’s industry-academia collaboration, until around the beginning of the 2010s, it was normal for company inquiries to be divided up amongst divisions, which would then consider individual joint research projects. However, companies also increasingly wondered what they should work on in the first place, and people at the university also began working on fusing different fields on an organizational level. This is also one of the reasons that we ended up doing comprehensive collaboration that crosses fields. Since even university scholars don’t know each other, for the past few years I’ve been persistently doing workshops, connecting people, and so on. However, as a result, I now think that people who serve as a buffer need to be able to draw up a blueprint.

How can these blueprints connect with scholars?

Kuwajima: While I say “blueprint,” it has to have a well-put together ground design that’s been examined from many angles, and one also needs to break down the research elements that will fill it in. From the perspective of scholars, what’s important is whether it would really be meaningful for them to engage in new work with industry in the context of their own research plans. The key is whether the buffer person can show that this is the case. However, if one conceives of things from the start with specific research seeds or research fields in mind, then there’s the possibility that they’ll be over-evaluated, which would defeat the purpose of it all.

For example, in the case of a topic like the currently popular cyber-physical systems,⁴ one does find, despite originally the connecting of the cyber and the physical being important, things being divided up between existing fields—for example, cyber is IT and physical is manufacturing—and the most important part (the connecting) being left vague with unclear concepts like “collaboration.”

Seen in this way, then while in each era specific research fields receive emphasis, this is not really essential. Particularly in the case of Kyoto University, everyone from young scholars to famous professors are doing very unique research in different fields, and various designs are possible. Therefore, people acting as buffers need to understand the essence of the research—while perhaps not at the same level as scholars themselves—and, if possible, ideally the scholars should without hesitation point out problems in the blueprints presented by buffer people like us, creating a relationship in which our ability make such collaboration a reality is improved as well.

(Interviewer: Takeo Ito)