From knowledge to impact
The World Intellectual Property Organization defines technology transfer as a collaborative process that allows scientific findings, knowledge and intellectual property to flow from creators to public and private users.
Beyond the importance of basic research, it is crucial to recognize that the value of an idea lies in the using of it, as Thomas Edison said. The highest potential of new scientific ideas lies in their transformational power for society and the impact they can generate.
Therefore, accelerating and scaling the utilization of scientific knowledge and inventions becomes an extremely relevant endeavour. However, technology transfer based on early-stage discoveries is challenging due to high commercial uncertainty, long and costly development cycles, and complex technical failure risks.
To achieve successful technology transfer requires combining the learnings and tools of multiple disciplines, including:
- Science: using the scientific method, having deep knowledge of the solution, designing experiments, prototyping and tinkering to solve problems…
- Business: understanding value creation and delivery, validating business models, marketing new solutions, analyzing markets and customers…
- Management: understanding people and systems, supporting innovation and creativity, managing projects and portfolios, building partnerships…
The technology transfer journey
Most descriptions of technology transfer frame it as a linear process. Generally, this process starts from research and development and progresses through invention disclosure, evaluation, protection, marketing, licensing, and commercialization. When cyclic representations are used, they just illustrate a circular process where financial returns are reinvested into new research and development.
Overall, such representations give the impression that technology transfer relies on a recurrent series of simple and known steps to achieve a clear goal through a set path. However, this is far from reality: each technology and transfer project goes through a different journey, embedded in its unique context and circumstances. Moreover, these representations fail to capture the numerous project pivots or the ecosystem that influences and enables the journey.
In contrast, a system representation may offer a more accurate and holistic view of technology transfer. Also, this could better reflect its dynamism and interrelatedness. In short, this allows introducing elements such as:
- Feedback loops that account for the influence of outputs on subsequent actions and decisions, leading to iterative cycles of adjustment.
- Interrelations between different stages and stakeholders, where changes in one area can significantly and unpredictably impact others.
- External factors such as regulatory changes, investing or consumer trends can affect the pace and direction of technology transfer.
The success of multistakeholder collaboration
Scientific entrepreneurs are uniquely positioned to generate transformative innovations by leveraging their deep domain knowledge and ideas. However, given the complexity of technology transfer, the full potential of scientific ideas can only be successfully realised through multistakeholder collaboration.
For this purpose, academic researchers and institutions build relations with multiple stakeholders with complementary expertise and capabilities. It takes a village to raise a technology, and some of the contributions necessary in that journey include:
- Research institutions and universities offer facilities, talent and incubation.
- Private funders contribute with funding and network opportunities.
- Companies have market insights, manufacturing and distribution infrastructure.
- Non-governmental organizations can provide local access to communities.
- Policymakers shape funding priorities, policies and regulations.
- Incubators and accelerators help with resources, funding and mentor networks.
In particular, the diversity of perspectives of different agents and organizations in the innovation ecosystem is key to enabling responsible and successful technology transfer.