As Japan finds itself involved in an ever increasing competition for industrial and technological leadership in Asia, the question of how universities and industry can work together in an international context becomes more urgent each year. As a leading research and teaching institution, Stanford University has a long commitment to working with Japanese institutions which dates back 25 years through the Stanford Program in Kyoto. The Stanford Program in Kyoto was originally conceived to produce Japan-literate engineers to help the U.S. maintain its engineering and technological edge, which was under pressure at the time from advances in Japanese technological capability. The motivation for the program has since evolved, and today it focuses purely on building ever-closer ties between academia at Stanford and Japanese research and industrial organizations for their mutual benefit.