Analysis of Collaborations between Small-Medium Companies and Universities Based on Joint Research Projects

The university-industry collaborations have been recognized as an important factor for the creation of innovation. Although the university-industry collaborations have been mainly conducted by large companies so far in Japan, the small-medium companies rather than large companies are accumulated in regional areas. However, there are a lot of problems in the university-industry collaborations of the small medium companies. In this paper, the collaborations between small-medium companies and universities are analyzed based on joint research projects. The results show that the joint research projects of small-medium companies for collaboration partners are not conducted enough comparing with those of large companies. Moreover, the results also show that the average budget per project of small-medium companies is rather lower than that of large companies according to the detailed data of Niigata University. Based on these results, the problems of the university-industry collaborations of small-medium companies for collaboration partners are extracted. Moreover, the stage map that proceeds to commercialization for the collaborations between small-medium companies and universities is made and discussed.