Founding Principles & Goals

Background

Over the years, our nation’s universities have been making great contributions to society by equipping the workforce to support our future, as well as creating and amassing a diverse array of "Knowledge", ranging from the humanities to the natural sciences, as intellectual assets shared by humanity. However, as we enter the "Age of Intelligence", when many believe that the key to economic revitalization is building new innovation systems to revolutionize social and economic structures, there are ever-greater expectations on universities, which are wellsprings of "Intelligence", to make contributions to society over the long term through education and research, and also to directly share the benefits of our research findings with society through routine, organized collaboration. Hokkaido University has placed more direct contributions to society among our existing fundamental goals of education and research as our "Third Goal", and we will continue to work to directly benefit the surrounding society. In accordance with these policies, we dissolved the Center for Intellectual Property, which had been established in October 2003, and established the Intellectual Property Committee in October of 2007 with the aim of systematic integration with industry-academia collaboration. Then, in April of 2009, the committee was reorganized as the Center for Innovation and Business Promotion. Finally, in April 2015, the University launched the "Institute for the Promotion of Business-Regional Collaboration" in order to take the next step toward "Practical Science".
 

Goals

The Institute for the Promotion of Business-Regional Collaboration aims to promote collaboration between academia and industry, aimed at developing real-world applications for Hokkaido University’s research findings, as well as regional collaboration intended to tackle region-specific challenges, and also to foster human resources who can contribute to the promotion of such industry-academia and regional collaboration, thereby contributing to the development of Japan's industries and the creation of innovation.

Principles

In order to create an environment in which Hokkaido University can fulfill its role as an academy, concentrating our efforts on education and research, the Institute for the Promotion of Business-Regional Collaboration is committed to providing an array of support services related to intellectual property.
Beyond merely creating and protecting intellectual property and fostering industry-academia collaboration, we will use intellectual property as the core of government-industry-academia collaboration to contribute to the founding of venture businesses, the creation of new industries, and the promotion of innovation, while also ensuring that researchers receive appropriate recognition and share in the profits they help generate. Furthermore, we aim to incorporate new knowledge gained from society into basic research at the University, create new sciences, and build a cycle of intelligence creation with intellectual property at its center.