36Open InnovationGlobal Alliance Department As economic and social globalization progresses, international strategy regarding R&D on information and com-munications technology, and development of the results of that R&D, is being viewed as more important than ever for promoting open innovation and international development and strengthening international competitiveness from a global perspective.The Global Alliance Department promotes international collaboration in NICT R&D activities and international devel-opment of R&D results, and by promoting open innovation with a global perspective, it also contributes to strengthen-ing Japan’s international competitiveness in the field of information and communications technology.Promotion of international re-search collaborationWe have established 21 Memoranda of Understanding (MOU) with 20 foreign or-ganizations in 12 countries and regions, including the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), the Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute, Karlsruhe Insti-tute of Technology (Germany), and the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Information and Communication (Vietnam), and are working proactively to promote interna-tional research collaboration and interna-tional development of NICT research re-sults (Fig.1).Promotion of projects in coop-eration with foreign govern-mentsWe have conducted research in collab-oration with Thailand’s National Electron-ics and Computer Technology Center (NECTEC) and others on a disaster resil-ience dam monitoring network. This was proposed by the Thailand Ministry of Digi-tal Economy and Society in response to an Asia-Pacific Telecommunity (APT) solicita-tion for international collaborative research and was adopted during FY2016 (Fig.2). Research on a landslide early warning sys-tem proposed through the Sri Lanka Tele-communication Regulation Commission was also selected in the same APT solici-tation. It was performed in collaboration with the Sri Lanka Disaster Management Centre, etc., and involved a study of the feasibility of applying our disaster-resilient network technology (NerveNet).Promotion of international joint research with the USAWith the National Science Foundation (NSF) of the USA, we decided on research topics of joint research in the network do-Fig.1 : Universities and research institutes with which we have a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) (as of end of FY2017)Overview of MOU with Foreign Institutes99 MOUs with 95 institutes in 30 countries and regions
Research and Development