JST Tokyo Office
http://www.jst.go.jp/a-step/kadai/h28-s1/h28_sangyo01.html
The forum “Industry-academia Collaboration Platform” for “Ceramics”*, under the industrial needs response type of the Industry-academia Collaborative R&D Program (A-STEP), was held on December 21, 2017.
The “Industry-academia Collaboration Platform” is a forum for the industrial and academic sectors to gather to exchange opinions on how to provide solutions to technical themes,** and reflect industrial demands and needs on research themes. Organizing such a forum whereby the academic and industrial sectors can work together to provide solutions to technical themes is one of the major features of the program.
At the beginning, the program officer talked about the aims of holding this event and expectations for industry. Next, Yoshitaka Kobe, Toyota Motors, gave a lecture entitled “Current situation and visions for development of ceramics materials at Toyota.” The theme of “expectations for new technology by utilizing existing materials efficiently” was particularly stimulating for researchers who tend to focus on the development of completely new materials from scratch. Each project leader reported on the progress of ongoing research and a plan for the next fiscal year. In the discussion, participants from industry shared their opinions and demands for visions and technological approaches for enhancing industrial competitiveness and infrastructure. Finally, the program officer reviewed the event and presented the forum schedule for the next year.
There were 6 participants from 2 organizations relating to ceramics and 31 from 18 material manufacturing companies, as well as 36 researchers from the academic sector and research institutes. Following the section forum held on September 12–13, this is the second Industry-academia Collaboration Platform held this fiscal year, which was the second year since the program was adopted. Participants from industry highly evaluated the progress made in many research projects in merely three months. Above all, the forum was concluded successfully and provided us with high expectations for collaboration between industry and academia in the future.
JST will promote research and development for high performance ceramics and innovative manufacturing processes incorporating the demands of industry through the various means afforded by the “Industry-academia Collaboration Platform.”
* “Ceramics”: High Performance of Ceramics and Manufacturing Process
** Technical theme: technical theme common to the industrial and academic sectors, solutions for which require the basic research of university and public research institutions, etc.
