Industry-Academic and Inter-corporate Collaboration in TAMA (Technology Advanced Metropolitan Area)

TAMA Industrial Activation Association Inc. (hereinafter the "TAMA Association"), was established by private companies, mainly product developing small and medium-sized enterprises, universities and other education and research organizations,industry associations,and local governments, in the western Tokyo metropolitan area. It is a practical example of an organization pioneering intermediation of industry-academic and inter-corporate collaboration and is viewed as a leading project of the Industrial Cluster Plan throughout the nation. Analyses of the cases of industry-academic and inter-corporate collaboration formed with the purpose of developing new technologies or products that are collected from the Association or in the region show that the TAMA Association is demonstrating its function as an intermediary organization. After that,this paper discusses requirements which enabled the TAMA Association and the collaboration cases to be successfully formed. In addition, this paper also tries to explain TAMA in relation to the concept of modularization.