Abstract: Over the past decade， Japan has not only deepened its basic forms of industry-university alliance in cooperative research， commissioned research， sponsored lectures， enterprises hatched by universities and university technology transfer projects， but also explored such new forms as business consortium， technical guidance， comprehensive agreement and membership. Japans industry-university alliance， quite different from the ones of Europe and America， is characterized by being diversified in forms， broad in fields and multileveled in objects. The scale of cooperative research has been expanded， the enterprises hatched by universities have made remarkable achievements， the university technology transfer projects have increased and the industry-university alliance in SMEs has been particularly active， which has begun to take on a new trend of open innovation.

Key words: Japan, industry-university alliance, diversified form