Sources of success in advanced materials innovation: The role of "core researchers" in university-industry collaboration in Japan

This article aimed to identify the effect of university-industry collaborations on the innovative performance of firms operating in the advanced materials field, and it proposed an original classification of the research organization partners. The main contribution resides in the estimation of the role played by collaborations with differently experienced corporate researchers. In the advanced materials industry the most effective collaborations are driven by "core researchers," who have been involved in authoring scientific papers, in addition to applying sizeable patents. The results of the case study focusing on partner firms collaborating with "Pasteur scientists" such as Fujishima and Hashimoto of the University of Tokyo confirm the idea that core researchers have the quality to work as boundary spanners between science and technology, and that their becoming heavy-weighted project leaders pushed the firms' R&D towards commercialization. © 2010 Imperial College Press.