Collaboration System between Academia and Financial Institutions Spurs Innovations at Local Level

(Special award of selection committee of industry-academia-government collaboration contributors 2016)

Yamagata University and 12 local financial institutions formed a collaborative system between academia and financial institutions, in which financial institutions that understand the local needs well have coordinated new initiatives and technological innovations with the help of academic knowledge of the university. This is a comprehensive management support system, known nationwide as Yamagata Model, whose purpose includes improving corporate management. In addition to setting a principle of training insightful coordinators, we put skill improvement programs in place for the system. With all those efforts, this system has facilitated sustained human development and interdisciplinary exchanges. More than 500 people took this human development training program by 2016.