COOPERATIVE RESEARCH-AND-DEVELOPMENT IN GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES - COMPARING THE UNITED-STATES AND JAPAN

Cooperative technology policy activities of US and Japanese government laboratories are compared to determine the extent, structural pattern s, motives, and consequences of cooperative R&D. Based on survey data from US federal laboratories and Japanese national laboratories, the s tudy shows that government laboratories of the respective nations are quite similar with regard to laboratory missions and motives for coope rative R&D. But the labs' cooperative R&D activities diverge in severa l ways. First, compared to Japanese government labs, US government lab s have, on average, more than twice as many cooperative R&D agreements . However, Japanese labs have a higher percentage of agreements with i ndustry and nonprofit organizations, and with foreign organizations. U S laboratories with a larger number of cooperative R&D agreements have a larger number of patents and somewhat higher ratings of technology transfer effectiveness. Japanese labs with a larger number of R&D agre ements also have more patents but lower ratings of technology transfer effectiveness. Finally, lab directors in the US and Japan diverge con siderably in their assessments of the contribution of cooperative R&D to the effectiveness of various lab research missions.