A study on industry-academia collaboration and incentive structure for university researchers in fisheries and ocean sciences (3)

To utilize supporting staff, data were analyzed using four quadrants of Stokes and multiple regression. The research revealed the problem of shortage of resources such as lack of sufficient time to concentrate on studies, weakened laboratory organization, shortage of supporting staff, etc. This is reflected in the phrase “researchers have been exhausted” in any university or field of research. From the policy viewpoint, we should regard the research environment in Japan as “a world in which researchers cannot survive without overwork,” and should make efforts to improve the situation. Development of the cooperation with the industry and local communities relates to this policy which would solve the problem by increasing the resources for undertaking research at universities. We have arrived at the following conclusions. First, researchers should be able to enjoy a decent lifestyle. If researchers wish to devote themselves to study during a special period because of their interest in studying or career advancement, then managers in universities should appreciate it. They should not force young researchers, who may be pregnant, to over-work or leave work or studies to care for children. Balance between professional and personal life should be regarded as important. Second, to solve the problem, we should reform the system that supports researchers by providing them sufficient time to research and improving support staff arrangements in an organization. Hence, more effective use of URA is required.