Building STP’s Ecosystem: Kitakyushu Approach - Technopolis: Best Practices for Science and Technology Cities - page 407

Fig. 7 Overview of the knowledge cluster initiative. Source MEXT ( 2009 ,p.3)

2.4 Decentralization of S&T Promotion: Building Regional
Innovation Networks and Establishing Prefectural
S&T Councils

In the Research and Development Enhancement Act enacted in 2008, innovation
was positioned as an objective of national strategy legally for the first time in
Japan. Japanese S&T system, together with it, was needed to reform for creating
innovation. Building regional innovation systems for creating regions full of
vitality is a critical one of major measures to implement it.
The Regional Innovation Networks Project subsidized by METI is a good
example of it. This project was implemented to make a creative basement of
regional innovation by subsidizing formation of integrated network of a large
region including universities and public research organizations carrying regional
innovation through using research resources mutually. When it ended in 2009, nine
regional innovation networks in total were formed in each jurisdiction of the
regional bureaus of METI: Hokkaido, Tohoku, Kanto, Chubu, Kinki, Chugoku,
Shikoku, Kyushu, and Okinawa.
On the other hand, prefectural governments established councils in charge of
deliberating S&T policies and made active contributions to the S&T promotion by
formulating their own plans and guidelines related to S&T (MEXT 2010 ).