•Examine the effect of project governance of publicly funded R&D consortia.•Project leadership directly improves firms’ innovation performance.•Commitment enhances firms’ innovation performance ...indirectly.•Leadership and public monitoring improve firms’ commitment.•Leadership and monitoring are complement for promoting firms’ commitment.
R&D consortia have been regarded as an effective means of promoting innovation. Several R&D consortia obtain public financial support, which may affect their governance structure and performance. This study investigates the governance mechanisms of publicly funded R&D consortia and their effects on innovation performance. Few studies have empirically addressed the effect of project monitoring by the government or the role of project leadership in R&D consortia. Focusing on a major support program for R&D consortia in Japan and using a sample of 251 firms that participated in publicly funded R&D consortia from 2004 to 2009, we empirically confirm that to enhance firms’ innovation performance, both project leadership as internal discipline and government monitoring as external discipline matter. Our results show that project leadership directly improves firms’ innovation performance, while firms’ commitment indirectly affects performance. Project leadership and government monitoring also promote commitment. Furthermore, both factors are complementary: consortia members are more willing to accept a project leader’s coordination under stricter government monitoring.
Abstract
Regional innovation policies have been implemented in several countries. In Japan, controlled decentralization of traditionally centralized innovation policy is ongoing, so that we can ...observe multilevel policy mix of public R&D (research and development) subsidies by national, prefecture, and city governments. However, empirical studies on multilevel R&D support using panel data and considering municipality level have been scarce. Based on original survey data and financial data of manufacturing small and medium enterprises (SMEs), we estimate their total factor productivity (TFP) and empirically investigate the effects of public R&D subsidies by national, prefecture, and city governments. We employ firm-level fixed-effect panel estimation in order to control for the effects of any unobservable time-invariant factors. We find that multilevel subsidies (especially those involving city subsidies) complementarily and persistently increase recipients’ TFP. These results suggest significant advantages of multilevel policy mix, especially those involving city subsidies.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
The governments of several countries support research and development (R&D) consortia between universities and industry through public subsidies, in order to promote innovation. In the first decade ...of this century, two ministries of the Japanese government, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) and Ministry of Education, Culture, Sport, Science and Technology (MEXT), began independently implementing cluster policies for R&D consortia with the same purpose, though with contrasting policy designs. While private firms can play a leading role and obtain a considerable share of the METI subsidy, they are the subcontractors to the university partners, and thus, cannot gain a direct share of the MEXT subsidy. Focusing on the Japanese policies, we empirically investigate how participating firms' commitment toward R&D projects differs between these cluster programs and examine whether the firms' commitment enhances project performance (i.e., commercialization of R&D outcomes) using original and comparable survey data. The estimation results suggest that the participants of the METI program demonstrate a significantly higher commitment when compared to the participants of the MEXT program, and that project performance significantly depends on firm commitment. A major policy implication is that when commercialization is important for the government, it should consider firm commitment in policy design.
•Examine the effect of cluster policy on project performance via firm's commitment•Compare two cluster programs in Japan with the same aim but different policy designs•Participants in METI program show higher commitment than those in MEXT program.•Commercialization of R&D outcomes depends on firm's commitment to R&D project.•Policy aim should be consistent with policy design, considering firm's incentive.
Despite the expectation of various advantages, university-industry research collaboration (UIC), a relationship between two different worlds, often faces serious conflicts. The performance of UIC ...depends on the research partners’ strategies and institutional designs through which they seek to mitigate these conflicts and increase partner incentives. We pay special attention to the role of the university intellectual property (IP) policy, formally introduced to Japan in 2003, as the basis of UIC contracts and empirically examine its impact on the performance of UIC projects, considering the factors in firms’ participation in UIC. We argue that the university IP policy that is equitable in sharing revenue and royalty from innovative outcomes and applied flexibly according to the partner’s needs may contribute to improving project performance by enhancing the commitment of firms, and we test our hypotheses using a sample of Japanese firms obtained from our original survey. The estimation results support the hypotheses, although the mediation via the firm’s commitment only partially explains the relationship between the university IP policy and UIC performance.
► We examine effects of support programs of Industrial Cluster Project (ICP) in Japan. ► We distinguish between direct R&D support and indirect networking support programs. ► Cluster firms exploiting ...support programs expand network after participating in ICP. ► Indirect support programs have more extensive impact on output than direct support. ► We suggest effectiveness of “soft” policy intervention by innovation intermediary.
Industrial clusters have attracted considerable attention worldwide for their expected contribution to regional innovation. Recently, policymakers in various countries have developed specific cluster policies. However, there exist few empirical studies on cluster policies. Focusing on the Industrial Cluster Project (ICP) in Japan initiated by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in 2001, we address two research questions on the support programs of the cluster policies: if the project participants who exploit various support programs are more successful in network formation within the cluster than others, and which kind of support program contributes to firm performance. We pay special attention to the differences between direct R&D support and indirect networking/coordination support. The estimation results, which are based on recent original survey data, suggest that cluster participants who exploit support programs (especially indirect support measures) expand the industry-university-government network after participating in the ICP. Moreover, we find that not every support program contributes to firm performance; firms should therefore select the program that is most aligned with their aims. Indirect support programs have an extensive and strong impact on output whereas direct R&D support has only a weak effect.
Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) can be generated from differentiated human and mouse somatic cells using transcription factors such as Oct4, Sox2, Klf4, and c-Myc. It is possible to augment ...the reprogramming process with chemical compounds, but issues related to low reprogramming efficiencies and, with a number of protocols, residual vector sequences, remain to be resolved. We show here that it is possible to reprogram mouse and human cells to pluripotency by direct transfection of mature double-stranded microRNAs (miRNAs). Our approaches use a combination of mir-200c plus mir-302 s and mir-369 s family miRNAs. Because this reprogramming method does not require vector-based gene transfer, it holds significant potential for biomedical research and regenerative medicine.
► Transfected mature miRNAs can reprogram mouse somatic cells to pluripotency ► A combination of mir-200c plus mir-302 s and mir-369 s family miRNAs is required ► miRNA-generated mi-iPSCs show all characteristics of pluripotency ► The same combination of miRNAs can also reprogram human somatic cells
•We empirically examine how R&D portfolio affects pharmaceutical licensing.•R&D portfolio of pharmaceutical firms is captured by stage-specific drug pipelines.•We jointly estimate equations of ...license-ins and license-outs at early and late stages.•Licensing occurs as a portfolio adjustment process across stages.•We find that licensing induces smooth the state of drug pipelines across stages.
We examine how R&D portfolios of drug pipelines affect pharmaceutical licensing, controlling firm size, diversity, and competition. The data collected comprises 434 license-ins and 329 license-outs closed by 54 Japanese pharmaceutical companies between 1997 and 2007. We pay special attention to stage-specific licensing by dividing the innovation process into early and late stages. Joint estimates of license-in and license-out using seemingly unrelated regressions (SUR) reveal that drug pipelines significantly affect stage-specific licensing, inducing portfolio effect that lead to smoothing drug pipelines across early and late stages.
Colonic epithelial cells are covered by thick inner and outer mucus layers. The inner mucus layer is free of commensal microbiota, which contributes to the maintenance of gut homeostasis. In the ...small intestine, molecules critical for prevention of bacterial invasion into epithelia such as Paneth-cell-derived anti-microbial peptides and regenerating islet-derived 3 (RegIII) family proteins have been identified. Although there are mucus layers providing physical barriers against the large number of microbiota present in the large intestine, the mechanisms that separate bacteria and colonic epithelia are not fully elucidated. Here we show that Ly6/PLAUR domain containing 8 (Lypd8) protein prevents flagellated microbiota invading the colonic epithelia in mice. Lypd8, selectively expressed in epithelial cells at the uppermost layer of the large intestinal gland, was secreted into the lumen and bound flagellated bacteria including Proteus mirabilis. In the absence of Lypd8, bacteria were present in the inner mucus layer and many flagellated bacteria invaded epithelia. Lypd8(-/-) mice were highly sensitive to intestinal inflammation induced by dextran sulfate sodium (DSS). Antibiotic elimination of Gram-negative flagellated bacteria restored the bacterial-free state of the inner mucus layer and ameliorated DSS-induced intestinal inflammation in Lypd8(-/-) mice. Lypd8 bound to flagella and suppressed motility of flagellated bacteria. Thus, Lypd8 mediates segregation of intestinal bacteria and epithelial cells in the colon to preserve intestinal homeostasis.
Disturbed activation of autophagy is implicated in the pathogenesis of inflammatory bowel disease. Accordingly, several autophagy-related genes have been identified as Crohn's disease susceptibility ...genes. We screened the autophagy activators from a library including 3,922 natural extracts using a high-throughput assay system. The extracts identified as autophagy activators were administered to mice with 2% dextran sodium sulfate (DSS). Among the autophagy inducers, Sanguisorba officinalis L. (SO) suppressed DSS-induced colitis. To identify the mechanism by which SO ameliorates colitis, epithelial cell and innate myeloid cells-specific Atg7-deficient mice (Villin-cre; Atg7
and LysM-cre; Atg7
mice, respectively) were analyzed. SO-mediated inhibition of colitis was observed in Villin-cre; Atg7
mice. However, SO and a mixture of its components including catechin acid, ellagic acid, gallic acid, and ziyuglycoside II (Mix
) did not suppressed colitis in LysM-cre; Atg7
mice. In large intestinal macrophages (Mφ) of Atg7
mice, SO and Mix
upregulated the expression of marker genes of anti-inflammatory Mφ including Arg1, Cd206, and Relma. However, these alterations were not induced in LysM-cre; Atg7
mice. These findings indicate that SO and its active components ameliorate DSS-induced colitis by providing intestinal Mφ with anti-inflammatory profiles via promotion of Atg7-dependent autophagy.
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