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Technology transfer is the process of sharing of skills, knowledge, technologies, methods of manufacturing, samples of manufacturing and facilities among governments and other institutions to ensure that scientific and technological developments are accessible to a wider range of users who can then further develop and exploit the technology into new products, processes, applications, materials or services.






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Technology transfer is the process of sharing of skills, knowledge, technologies, methods of manufacturing, samples of manufacturing and facilities among governments and other institutions to ensure that scientific and technological developments are accessible to a wider range of users who can then further develop and exploit the technology into new products, processes, applications, materials or services. While conceptually the practice has been utilized for many years (in ancient times, Archimedes
Archimedes

Archimedes of Syracuse was a Greek mathematics, physicist, engineer, inventor, and astronomer. Although few details of his life are known, he is regarded as one of the leading scientists in classical antiquity....
 was notable for applying science to practical problems), the present-day volume of research, combined with high-profile failures at Xerox PARC
Xerox PARC

PARC , formerly Xerox PARC, is a research and development company in Palo Alto, California with a distinguished reputation for its contributions to information technology....
 and elsewhere, has led to a focus on the process itself.

Transfer process

Many companies, universities and governmental organizations now have an "Office of Technology Transfer" (also known as "Tech Transfer" or "TechXfer") dedicated to identifying research which has potential commercial interest and strategies for how to exploit it. For instance, a research result may be of scientific and commercial interest, but patent
Patent

A patent is a set of exclusive rights granted by a state to an inventor or his assignee for a term of patent in exchange for a disclosure of an invention....
s are normally only issued for practical processes, and so someone -- not necessarily the researchers -- must come up with a specific practical process. Another consideration is commercial value; for example, while there are many ways to accomplish nuclear fusion
Nuclear fusion

In nuclear physics and nuclear chemistry, nuclear fusion is the process by which multiple like-charged atomic nuclei join together to form a heavier nucleus....
, the ones of commercial value are those that generate more energy than they require to operate.

The process to commercially exploit research varies widely. It can involve licensing agreements or setting up joint ventures and partnerships to share both the risks and rewards of bringing new technologies to market. Other corporate vehicles, e.g. spin-outs, are used where the host organization does not have the necessary will, resources or skills to develop a new technology. Often these approaches are associated with raising of venture capital
Venture capital

Venture capital is a type of private equity capital typically provided to early-stage, high-potential, Growth investing companies in the interest of generating a return through an eventual realization event such as an IPO or mergers and acquisitions of the company....
 (VC) as a means of funding the development process, a practice more common in the US than in the EU, which has a more conservative approach to VC funding.

In recent years, there has been a marked increase in technology transfer intermediaries specialized in their field. They work on behalf of research institutions, governments and even large multinationals. Where start-ups and spin-outs are the clients, commercial fees are sometimes waived in lieu of an equity stake in the business. As a result of the potential complexity of the technology transfer process, technology transfer organizations are often multidisciplinary, including economists, engineers, lawyers, marketers and scientists. The dynamics of the technology transfer process has attracted attention in its own right, and there are several dedicated societies and journals.

See also

  • Angel investor
    Angel investor

    Angel capital is money invested in a business to provide equity capital, not debt which must be repaid regardless of the success of the business....
  • Bayh-Dole Act
    Bayh-Dole Act

    The Bayh-Dole Act or University and Small Business Patent Procedures Act is United States law dealing with intellectual property arising from Research funding#Government-funded research....
  • Blue Ocean Strategy
    Blue Ocean Strategy

    Blue Ocean Strategy is a business strategy book that promotes creating new market space or "blue ocean" rather than competing in an existing industry....
  • Business Incubator
    Business incubator

    Business incubators are programs designed to accelerate the successful development of entrepreneurial companies through an array of business support resources and services, developed and orchestrated by incubator management and offered both in the incubator and through its network of contacts....
  • Commercialization
    Commercialization

    Commercialization is the process or cycle of introducing a new product into the market. The actual launch of a new product is the final stage of new product development, and the one where the most money will have to be spent for advertising, sales promotion, and other marketing efforts....
  • Copycat
  • Diffusion of innovations
    Diffusion of innovations

    Diffusion of innovation is a theory of how, why, and at what rate new ideas and technology spread through cultures. Everett Rogers introduced it in his 1962 book, Diffusion of Innovations, writing that "Diffusion is the process by which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among the members of a social system."...
  • Discovery (observation)
    Discovery (observation)

    Discovery observations form acts of detecting and learning something. Discovery observations are acts in which something is found and given a productive insight....
  • Innovation
    Innovation

    The term innovation means a new way of doing something. It may refer to incremental, radical, and revolutionary changes in thinking, products, processes, or organizations....
  • Intellectual property
    Intellectual property

    Intellectual property are law property over creations of the mind, both artistic and commercial, and the corresponding fields of law. Under intellectual property law, owners are granted certain exclusive rights to a variety of intangible assets, such as musical, literary, and artistic works; ideas, discoveries and inventions; and words, phra...
  • Invention
    Invention

    An invention is the creation of a new configuration, composition of matter, device, or process. Some inventions are based on pre-existing models or ideas....
  • Leapfrogging
    Leapfrogging

    The concept of leapfrogging was originally used in the context of economic growth theories and industrial-organisation innovation studies with specific focus on competition among firms....
  • Open Innovation
    Open Innovation

    Open Innovation is a term promoted by Henry Chesbrough, a professor and executive director at the Center for Open Innovation at University of California, Berkeley....
  • Patent
    Patent

    A patent is a set of exclusive rights granted by a state to an inventor or his assignee for a term of patent in exchange for a disclosure of an invention....
  • Prior art
    Prior art

    Prior art , in most systems of patent law, constitutes all information that has been made available to the public in any form before a given date that might be relevant to a patent's claims of originality....
  • Seed money
    Seed money

    A seed round, sometimes known as a friends and family round or seed funding, is a securities offering whereby one or more parties that have some connection to a new enterprise invest the funds necessary to start the business so that it has enough funds to sustain itself for a period of development until it reaches either a state w...
  • Startup company
    Startup company

    A startup company or start-up is a company with a limited operating history. These companies, generally newly created, are in a phase of development and research for markets....
  • Technology assessment
    Technology assessment

    Technology assessment is the study and evaluation of new technology. It is based on the conviction that new developments within, and discoveries by, the scientific community are relevant for the world at large rather than just for the scientific experts themselves, and that technological progress can never be free of ethics implications....
  • Technology readiness level
    Technology Readiness Level

    Technology Readiness Level is a measure used by some United States government agencies and many of the world's major companies to assess the Mature technology prior to incorporating that technology into a system or subsystem....
  • Value chain
    Value chain

    The value chain, also known as value chain analysis, is a concept from business management that was first described and popularized by Michael Porter in his 1985 best-seller, Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance....


Journals

  • Comparative Technology Transfer and Society
    Comparative Technology Transfer and Society

    Comparative Technology Transfer and Society is an academic journal in the field of Science and technology studies published by Johns Hopkins University Press and sponsored by the Colorado Institute for Technology Transfer and Implementation....
  • Technology Transfer Tactics
    Technology Transfer Tactics

    Technology Transfer Tactics is a monthly newsletter in the field of technology transfer. It is published by BizWorld, Inc., a privately held company headquartered in Naples, FL....


External links

IPCC Special Report:Methodological and Technological issues in Technology Transfer