1、 1 本科毕业论文外文翻译 外文题目： Competitiveness in High-Tech Fields and Nanotechnology 出 处： 2003 NRI Papers 作 者： Naoki IKEZAWA 原 文： Competitiveness in High-Tech Fields and Nanotechnology Naoki IKEZAWA During the so-called “lost decade” of the 1990s, Japans competitiveness sharply declined in such representative
2、 high-tech areas as semiconductors and liquid crystal applications, accelerating a hollowing-out of core technologies. Despite various measures taken in recent years to remedy this situation, there is still a long ways to go before we will see any fruitful results in terms of industrial competitiven
3、ess. Accordingly, the realization of a new paradigm towards the acquisition of competitiveness is required among both companies and the government. This means the establishment of new business models in the case of companies, and a thorough overhaul of the vertically divided administrative structure
4、 in the case of the government. 1.Shift Towards the Basics Began in the 1980s (1) Criticizing Japans alleged free ride in basic research Japan began to rapidly improve its technological competitiveness in the 1970s and started to pose a major threat to leading companies in the United States and Euro
5、pe, which had long been the targets of Japans efforts to catch up. Indeed, the exact situation that Japan is facing, i.e., declining competitiveness and the hollowing-out of domestic industries, was taking place in Europe and, particularly, in the United States. The domestic measures mounted in the
6、United States to reverse these trends included a strengthening of research and development investment in such leading-edge fields as information and biotechnology, where the prospects for industrialization were unclear at the time. Such measures also included the vitalization of universities and the
7、 implementation of various steps to link the results of academic research to industry. In terms of external measures, a survey organization known as the Japanese Technology Evaluation Center (JTEC) was established in 1983 and exclusively charged with monitoring developments and analyzing the backgro
8、und of Japans efforts to improve its competitiveness. This represented the classic approach of knowing ones enemy and learning what should be learned. 2 At the same time, the developing trade friction between Japan and the United States over television sets and semiconductors led to an increase in c
9、riticism since the 1970s about what the United States saw as Japans industrial development policies. In other words, the United States regarded Japans policies as using the full efforts of the nation to support selected industries, or so-called targeting policies, and increased its criticism by usin
10、g the term Japan Inc. This criticism became especially acrimonious over the issue of basic research, with many Western observers claiming that Japan was taking a free ride in basic technology. As the results of basic research are seen as the public domain of the world at large, it is a widely accept
11、ed notion that every nation should make appropriate contributions to its formation. Accordingly, the crux of the argument was that Japan was enjoying industrial success by utilizing the results of basic research (acquired from the United States and Europe), but was doing little to fulfill its intern
12、ational responsibilities with respect to creating basic research results. (2) Shift towards basic research by both the government and private sector companies While some doubt still remains over the validity of such criticism, there was a shift by both the government and private sector companies in
13、Japan towards carrying out more basic research. The government moves included the steps taken in 1981 to inaugurate the Technology Research and Development Program for Next-Generation Industrial Infrastructures to replace the Development Program for Large-Scale Industrial Technology (known as the “l
14、arge projects”), which had led to major successes in catching up with leading Western companies in the computer industry since its establishment in 1996. This new program was set up with the aim of further improving originality and creativity by regarding the former large projects category as repres
15、entative of efforts to catch up in technological terms. Since then, the weight of basic research has been increased under projects led by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry. Another move taken in 1981 was the establishment of the Exploratory Research for Advanced Technology (ERATO) by
16、the Science and Technology Agency. As evidenced by the fact that projects under this program took on the names of individual researchers, the emphasis has been placed on the ideas of the inventors and researchers involved rather than their ultimate purposes and applications. This has served to stron
17、gly orient the program towards the basics.This national policy of focusing on basic research has had a major positive impact in terms of enhancing the infrastructural technology that supports the basics in various areas of industry. (3) Two problems in the shift towards basic research From the viewp
18、oint of industrial competitiveness, however, this shift towards basic research has raised two problems. The first relates to what many see as an excessive emphasis on basic over applied research in many areas. This has led to a significant cutback in the number of large-scale research and developmen
19、t projects that entail shared final objectives (e.g., high-performance mainframe computers, large-capacity memory systems, and superhigh-density LSI applications). Moreover, this trend of shifting towards the basics has not been limited to government efforts only. Similarly, private sector companies
20、 have seemingly responded en masse to the nations shift towards basic 3 researcha phenomenon that is perhaps best symbolized by the number of basic research laboratories established by major Japanese companies. Like the boom in setting up central laboratories that occurred in the high growth era of
21、the 1960s, a similar rush to open laboratories devoted to basic research started to take place. For example, Hitachi, Ltd. established a basic research laboratory under its central laboratories in 1985. While one would assume that the relative importance of basic vs. applied research is not a matter
22、 to be determined by the proximity of commercially feasible applications, some companies were so caught in this basic research boom that they tended to neglect research and development activities in fields that were only steps away from practical realization. As a result, efforts to strengthen compe
23、titiveness in typical high-tech products such as semiconductors, magnetic memories, optical communications, and liquid crystal displays (LCDs) were neglected. The second problem in the shift towards the basics by the government and the private sector was the climate of pushing forward almost blindly
24、 without fully digesting the essence of basic research or adopting a methodology for its promotion. In short, a mindset began to take hold that saw the success of basic research as wholly dependent on the skills of those conducting such research. This scenario essentially discouraged any effort to e
25、valuate the progress of research during the process itself on the grounds that everything should await the final stage once the researchers had been selected and their skills identified. For example, the Technology Research and Development Program for Next-Generation Industrial Infrastructures adopt
26、ed an implementation period of ten years for each theme. The program divided this period into two phases, with an evaluation at the end of the first phase to determine the appropriateness of continuing the research. As it turned out, however, this evaluation system had never worked effectively when
27、it was first adopted. Consequently, the situation became one in which there were many small, independent basic research themes, which offered creativity but had little objective review from the outside. As a result, the system led to the establishment of a plethora of what were essentially isolated
28、outposts spread across an extensive field of basic research. While some of them housed excellent researchers, predominance among the various independent entities could only be maintained by competition. Yet a structure that consisted of scattered outposts is simply not effective from the standpoint
29、of industrialization and business development, in which the combined strength of many researchers and entities determines success or failure. As described above, these two problems created a tendency to avoid competition in the main high-tech arenas of industrial and corporate competitiveness. And b
30、ecause competitiveness is fostered through competition, Japans competitiveness in various high-tech fields inevitably started declining after the 1980s as a result of these trends. (4) The matter of Japans hubris In addition to the shift towards the basics, another factor that should be cited as part of the background to this declining competitiveness was the blatant hubris on the part of Japan. In essence, regardless of how
