Japan was trying to find out innovative and creative ways to increase its economic performance and to get rid of lingering concerns over the stagnation set in the past several decades after the collapse of “bubble economy” which ended in the early 1990s. The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) started the plan to develop industrial clusters in 2001, and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) started the plan to develop intellectual knowledge clusters in 2002. However, these two types of cluster creation projects were forced to end due to the change of the ruling political party in the year of 2009.

In the United States, universities and their affiliated people are considered as key resource drivers to start up new venture businesses for innovations. However, by comparison, research related to the field of industrial and knowledge clusters in Japan has been concentrated traditionally in-house within large keiretsu companies or government initiative concerns despite the recent working environmental changes caused by the emerging IoT age (Internet of things). This research tries to theoretically review the two projects of “Industrial Clusters,” and “Knowledge Clusters,” which were initiated and budgeted by the Central Government of METT and MEXT respectively in order to identify existing issues and to indicate a constructive proposal for leading to the creation of successful industrial and knowledge cluster models in Japan.