■ Background and purpose
Innovation holds the key to Japan’s future economic growth. The process of innovation is highly complex, and accompanied by a social division of labor. To clarify measures that will effectively promote innovation in both the creation and application of knowledge, there is a need for systematic research into every process of innovation, from the accumulation of objective data and creation of ideas based on such data to their use. This research endeavor is pursuing research on innovation processes, including the mechanisms of knowledge creation and paths toward competition and cooperation in R&D, based on industry-academia-government collaboration (personnel exchanges, sharing of data and sharing of costs). Together with obtaining research results that set an international standard, the project seeks to embody its research results in novel policies and proposals for institutional reforms that will improve the technology management capabilities of government agencies and the industrial sector, and promote innovation.