Measuring the dynamics of technological change

In a discussion of science and technology policy there is no way of avoiding Japan which has emerged as a technological superpower. This book is no exception, although it primarily thrashes out analytical approaches to understanding technological change. However, the research on which the present book draws saw its beginning at a luncheon at Saitama University. Professor Toru Yoshimura, Dean of the Graduate School of Policy Science, Mr Göran Friborg and Mr Jan Olof Carlsson, from the Swedish Board for Technical Development (STU), decided that it would be worthwhile to carry out a comparative study of technological policies in Japan and Sweden.

Researchers from Sweden and Japan were soon joined by colleagues in Germany, and a three-country comparative study group was formed at a first meeting in Stockholm in the autumn of 1984, sponsored by STU. A tentative research plan was hammered out in subsequent meetings. Seminars to discuss research findings were organized by the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovations Research in Karlsruhe, by the Institute for Policy Science at Saitama University in Urawa and finally by the Research Policy Institute at the University of Lund in June 1989. The last meeting provided the opportunity for suggesting final changes to the contributions which are included in this volume. The research at the three places has also resulted in numerous other papers, publications and a volume of seminar proceedings.1

The Research Policy Institute has emphasized primary R&D activities rather than advanced systems integration and general diffusion of technologies. The Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research has developed a new indicator which promises to fill the gap between basic technologies analysis and trade analysis of success in the market-place for high technology products. The Institute for Policy Science at Saitama University and the National Institute of Science and Technology Policy (NISTEP), the present intellectual base of Kodama, have contributed to interesting and challenging insights on how to assess and understand changes in the R&D system.

In the seminars we have been joined by many research colleagues who have prepared presentations from which we have benefited. In the process of carrying out the research we have also enjoyed close. interaction with researchers from other countries.

We want to thank the sponsoring organizations which have made the research possible. These include the Bundesministerium für Forschung und Technologie (BMFT) in Bonn, the Ministry of Education (Monbusho) in Tokyo and the Swedish Board for Technical Development (STU) in Stockholm.

We hope that this volume, aside from being the results of an enjoyable period of international comparative research, will also provide new insights into the exciting and changing field of science and technology policy studies and stimulate new research.