Japanese R&D Policies and Strategies for Advanced Materials and Superconductors

The objective of this chapter is to provide an introduction to the analysis of the data collected during the field work by summarising the history and main characteristics of Japanese policies and strategies for advanced materials and superconductors. Section 6.2 discusses the conditions which led to the adoption of measures promoting the development of advanced materials in Japan, in the early 1970s, and highlights the main features of the strategies and policies adopted in the last two decades. The section examines the most important Japanese government R&D programmes for advanced materials (discussing their origins, targets, budgets, characteristics and main consequences), underlining the shift in emphasis from advanced ceramics — which played a central role in Japanese strategies until the mid-1980s — to high-temperature superconductors, after 1987. Complementing this analysis, section 6.3 summarises the history of Japanese R&D programmes and strategies for superconductivity previous to the mid-1980s. Section 6.4 presents the main points of the discovery of the high-temperature superconductors, in 1986, and discusses the responses given in Japan by the scientific and technological community, firms and government agencies. Section 6.5 then presents and examines current Japanese R&D programmes and strategies for the new high-temperature superconductors.