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.