Does university entrepreneurship work in Japan?: a comparison of industry-university research funding and technology transfer activities between the UK and Japan

Abstract

Entrepreneurship in Japanese universities has changed radically over the last 15 years, following the introduction of an equivalent to the Bayh-Dole Act in 1999. However, it is still unclear whether Japanese entrepreneurship is working. There are some publications that focus on the entrepreneurship environment in the early of 2000s by comparing Japan and other countries, but none in the last decade. In this study, we show that the national economic situation and university size are very similar between the UK and Japan. We compare university research funding and intellectual property income, numbers relating to patents, licences granted, and spin-offs between the UK and Japan nationally and between two specific universities. Japanese universities’ entrepreneurship has improved over the past 10 years, and the trend remains positive. However, Japanese universities currently possess, arguably, too many patents and also receive relatively low income from patents, resulting in significant pressure on their budgets. The number of Japanese spin-offs created fell significantly between 2005 and 2010, since when the number has remained at around 50 per year. We expect that Japanese entrepreneurship could improve by implementing a review of patent strategy and technology transfer processes, improvement of technology transfer skills, and governmental activity.