TRANSNATIONAL COOPERATION BETWEEN TSINGHUA UNIVERSITY AND JAPANESE BUSINESSES: AGREEMENTS AND MOTIVATIONS

Cooperation between universities and industries is an important key to promote technological change in many industries. In most developing countries, university research units are the main organizations that create new knowledge. Therefore, the overseas businesses who plan to broaden their market in China, usually prefer, if possible, to collaborate with local top-tier universities for high quality and efficient joint researches.

Tsinghua University is one of the most famous universities in China which ranks within top 50 in Times University Ranking 2017. As the top-level research-oriented university, it has been attracted quite a number of well-known businesses from both domestic and overseas to explore cooperation opportunities.In recent years. Tsinghua and the famous Japanese businesses such as Honda, TOYOTA, Toshiba, MITSUBISHI, Hitachi, Rohm and SMC carried out a wide range and multi-level cooperation which cover areas of metallurgy, chemical industry, machinery, information, energy and environment.

Thus, in such transnational UI cooperation, what are their motives respectively? This paper examines a specific case study by using the historical literature and official statistics which are collected from both Tsinghua University and its Japanese partners; and holds in-depth interviews with university officials, professors from who are involved or involving the research projects with Japanese businesses, to investigate the specific characteristics of the cooperation, as well as its relationship within social context.