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Office of Collaborative Research Development

Roles

Keeping the broad scope of societal demands in mind, the Office of Collaborative Research Development capitalizes on the comprehensive capacity of the University of Tokyo to provide practical support to faculty researchers and the corporate world so that multi-departmental collaborative research and consortia can become a reality. We create opportunities for researchers from private companies and our faculty to meet and have ardent discussions on research topics from the conception stage onward. We hope that the resultant fusion of new ideas from universities and corporations will create values relevant to both.

Business Operations Overview

The Office of Collaborative Research Development engages in the following activities.

Our information desk provides information and answers questions regarding collaborative research development.
Capitalizing on the distinctive characteristics of the University of Tokyo, we support and host various events that stimulate the creation of collaborative research and that generate new values.
We develop new models for collaborative research to meet the diverse demands of researchers from both the corporate world and our faculty.
We investigate and conduct research to identify relevant issues and provide solutions for the increasingly diversified arena of collaborative research in an era where university-corporate relations have become increasingly relevant.

Current Major Activities

We are presently engaged in the following activities to stimulate collaborative research.

We have an information desk to handle queries from internal (faculty) and external (corporate) researchers.
We host Proprius21, a brainstorming and planning program for collaborative research that generates stimulating discussions on topics ranging from the conception of ideas to implementing collaborative research that produces visible results.
We proactively accept proposals from corporate and faculty researchers and host Project Proposal Meetings/Workshops and Workshops for Proposals to Put Seeds to Practical Use/Seeds to Practical Use (Brainstorming Sessions) to help form partnerships in collaborative research whenever deemed necessary.
We host UCR Workshops and UCR-WG (Working Groups) where researches from faculty and multiple companies participate in exploring the possibilities of new project ideas in university-corporate relations.
The platform of the UT Council for University-Corporate Relations is able to expedite the transmission of information to both the corporate world and the University and is the place where the results of the studies of faculty researchers are released. We host the Science & Technology Forum, an important starting point in university-corporate relations, a few times a year.
We co-host plaza activities with external organizations such as JST to exchange information between industry and our university.

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Message from the General Manager

The core missions of the Office of Collaborative Research Development are to release the results of collaborative research between the University and private corporations to industry and society, to support private companies that wish to conduct collaborative research with multiple departments of the University, to support faculty researchers who wish to work with corporate organizations, and to establish specific collaborative research.

To ensure all of this happens we have taken the following steps:

The Office of Collaborative Research Development hosts Proprius21, a feasibility study program for collaborative research that generates stimulating discussion on topics ranging from the conception of ideas to the implementation of collaborative research that produces visible results.
The office hosts Global Proprius21 Programs to promote international university-corporate relations, including collaborative research with overseas businesses.
The office introduces research seeds of faculty researchers who wish to take part in university-corporate relations as UCR-Proposals.
The office proactively seeks and regularly receives proposals from private companies and faculty researchers. Also, the office holds Project Proposal Meetings/Workshops and Workshops for Proposals to Put Seeds to Practical Use when necessary to find partners.
The office also promotes the activities of UCR Workshops and UCR-WG (Working Groups). Together, researchers from faculty and multiple companies explore the possibilities of university-corporate relations and brainstorm ideas for new projects in these working groups.
The office hosts the Science and Technology Exchange Forum a few times a year to promote university-corporate relations, providing faculty researchers with opportunities to introduce their research results broadly over the University Corporate Relations Network, the University of Tokyo platform which functions as a site for interactive information exchange between the University and private companies.

We hope that these frameworks will be used to great advantage and that we can help produce collaborative research that is valuable to both corporate and faculty researchers and that results in the creation of new intellectual property, new business, and new contributions to society.

The Office of Collaborative Research Development also promotes the Technology Liaison Fellow training program. In this program, local government officials are invited to the University of Tokyo as trainees to learn about university-corporate relations via on-the-job training for one year. They are expected to effectively use the knowledge they acquire to revitalize their local communities later.

We always welcome comments, questions and ideas regarding university-corporate relations.