July 13-14, 2018
Building No.4 Hall, Nagoya Institute of Technology
https://www.jst.go.jp/a-step/kadai/h28-s1/h28_sangyo01.html
The forum of Industry-academia Collaboration Platform for “Ceramics”*, under the industrial needs response type of the Industry-academia Collaborative R&D Program (A-STEP), was held in the Building No.4 Hall at the Nagoya Institute of Technology on July 13-14, 2018.
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 in their 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, Dr. Yoshio Sakka, the program officer, talked about the aims of holding this event and expectations for industry. He gave a lecture entitled “Germany's continuous growth. Where does its strength come from?” He presented the comparison of labor environment and productivity of R&D between Japan and Germany, then introduced major ceramics research institutes of both countries. It was a good opportunity to gain suggestions of what Japanese ceramics research and researchers should be.
Next, each project leader reported on the progress of ongoing research after the last forum or the laboratory visit made this year. In the discussion, industry participants 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 an overview of the interim evaluation scheduled for the next October.
There were 4 participants from 2 organizations relating to ceramics and 25 participants from 16 ceramics material and device manufacturing companies, as well as 33 researchers from the academic sector and research institutes during the two-day forum. Because it is now the third year since the projects were adopted, many of them have made certain progress since the beginning. The forum was also highly evaluated that the discussions were based on the premise of the visible goals. Participants also evaluated that there were increased discussions towards visible goals. 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.
