A "university town" for spreading innovation - Bringing together academia and industry in open exploration

As described by OI Platform Director Osamu Watanabe, Tokyo Tech and its partners are taking a new approach to industry-academia collaboration, committed to the development of new technologies and the creation of new businesses based on organization-to-organization agreements. The OI Platform allows for the implementation of a centralized management system with skilled professionals, investment in resources for Tokyo Tech research, and development of new businesses with companies that establish a collaborative research cluster at the university, supporting the path from technology discovery to adoption.

The number of companies with collaborative research clusters at Tokyo Tech has doubled from three in 2019 to six in 2020. Members of the six companies at the Meetup and OI School expressed their opinions about changes in Japan's business environment, challenges they face, and the type of industry-academia collaboration they expect from Tokyo Tech.

Japanese companies do not have high worker mobility compared to foreign companies. That means that even if the market and technological development trends change significantly, Japanese companies are not inclined to create innovation that involves development reforms. The expectations of Japanese industry for universities in this regard are now higher than ever. Keiji Mitsuyuki, Director of the Tokyo Office DENSO CORPORATION, which established the DENSO Mobility Collaborative Research Cluster, said "we must acquire new technology that responds to the major changes in the automobile industry. At the collaborative research cluster established at Tokyo Tech, we will work on multifaceted research and its social implementation with researchers from a wide range of fields such as electronics, semiconductors, electrical equipment, machinery, and communications."

Idemitsu Kosan Co., Ltd. is a leader in the domestic oil and fuel industry, and is under pressure to reform its business for a different reason. Japan's oil demand peaked in the mid-90s due to the electrification of cars and the aging of oil-fired power plants, and has been declining since. The company set up the Idemitsu Kosan Collaborative Research Cluster for Advanced Materials. Iwao Akiba, Assistant to the General Manager at the R&D Strategy Division in the company's Advanced Technology Research Laboratories had this to say: "We are aiming to shift to the functional materials business including polymer composite materials that replace petroleum fuels. To achieve this shift, we were looking for a university partner with researchers from a wide range of technical fields who we could look to for collaborations, from proposals for research topics to the conducting of research. It was Tokyo Tech that met those conditions."

AGC Inc. (a major glass manufacturer), also, set up the AGC Material Collaborative Research Cluster with the aim of expanding its business domains. Tsuguhide Isemura, Senior Manager of the Collaborative Innovation Group in the Planning Division at the company's Technology General Division, emphasizes the importance of collaborative research with universities. "We are changing our business format to become a manufacturer that develops and provides materials with new value, not just glass. Materials take time, from topic discovery to research and development, commercialization, and social implementation. The power of universities is essential for long-term efforts."

Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, Inc. comes from a completely different background, and needs to conduct multifaceted research. The company has set up the TEPCO Collaborative Research Cluster for Decontamination and Decommissioning (D&D) Frontier Technology Creation to find a way to proceed with decommissioning work at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station accurately and quickly. "The composition and condition of the fuel debris left at the site are unclear. The work of removing unknown substances requires more than just technical knowledge. Tokyo Tech produces abundant research findings in the field of nuclear power and can bring together high-level expertise from science and engineering fields at large. We had to cooperate with Tokyo Tech." (Gaku Sato, Manager of the Regional Partnership Promotion Group, Project Management Office at the company's Fukushima Daiichi D&D Engineering Company)

In addition, increasing sophistication means there are many cases where corporate technology development is not enough. A typical example is Komatsu (Komatsu Ltd.), a construction equipment manufacturer that set up the Komatsu Collaborative Research Cluster for Innovative Technologies. Komatsu is jointly researching tribology (phenomena associated with sliding such as lubrication, friction, wear, and seizure) that are essential for improving the performance of construction equipment. The technology is related to the company's core business, and it is an area where it is no longer feasible to improve performance simply by focusing on mechanical technology. Izumi Nishizawa of the Komatsu Collaborative Research Cluster for Innovative Technologies said that conducting research with researchers in machinery, materials, and chemistry produced insights to raise the level of their technological capabilities, such as extending the lifespan of hydraulic pumps.

Tokyo Tech's new industry-academia collaboration framework will also be effective in accelerating adoption of new technology. The startup company aiwell Inc. has set up the aiwell AI Proteomics Collaborative Research Cluster. They launched a business that uses AI to analyze the proteins that make up the human body and provides technologies for improving quality of life. CEO Hiroyuki Mabuchi said "there are surprisingly few opportunities for companies to see the outstanding technology developed at universities and research institutes, hindering their social implementation. Representing Tokyo Tech, we will promote adoption of new technologies in society by presenting them to companies and proposing business models."

Gaku Sato of Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings touched on the content of Professor Kanade's lecture at the OI School. He said "the importance of sorting out the problem to be solved is something our engineers must keep in mind. In some cases, we stand frozen in front of a big problem without being able to break it down into smaller problems to tackle. Professor Kanade's message made me realize that. I would like to provide such opportunities to our young engineers as well." Manabu Miyata, General Manager of the Tokyo Planning Department at the Tokyo Office of DENSO said he hopes that the OI School and collaborative research cluster will be opportunities for recurrent education to learn insights, values, and methods from different fields that cannot be taught in-house.