Are researchers deliberately bypassing the technology transfer office? An analysis of TTO awareness

Most universities committed to the commercialization of academic research have established technology transfer offices (TTOs). Nonetheless, many researchers bypass these TTOs and take their inventions directly to the marketplace. While TTO bypassing has typically been portrayed as deliberate and undesirable behavior, we argue that it could be unintentional as many researchers may simply be unaware of the TTO’s existence. Taking an information-processing perspective and using data on 3250 researchers in 24 European universities, we examine researcher attributes associated with TTO awareness. Our evidence confirms that only a minority of researchers are aware of the existence of a TTO at their university. TTO awareness is greater among researchers who possess experience as entrepreneurs, closed many research and consulting contracts with industry partners, conduct research in medicine, engineering or life sciences, or occupy postdoctoral positions. Policy implications of these findings are discussed

Commercializing university research in transition economies: technology transfer offices or direct industrial funding?

There is a paucity of knowledge on research commercialization by university scientists worldwide. The objective of this paper is to identify the role that Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs) and direct Industrial Funding play in university research commercialization in transition economies of Azerbaijan, Belarus and Kazakhstan during 2015–2017. We do this by developing a novel database and a multi-level model which explains how individual attributes, organizational and ecosystem characteristics explain the extent of knowledge commercialization. We apply the generalized Heckman approach to account for two selection biases, reducing the sample from 2602 to 272 scientists, and further use a mixed-method approach to analyse 27 face-to-face interviews with researchers and TTO managers. The results demonstrate that research commercialization is not associated with the existence and awareness of TTO or the establishment of commercialization contracts via TTO, but the direct industrial funding of university research. Taken together the findings have clear implications for scholars, scientific entrepreneurs, TTOs and investors who aim to exploit university knowledge in transition economies

Motivations and barriers of university-industry cooperation: a comparison between Brazil and Ireland

The cooperation process between university and industry is complex . It presents a set of factors that motivate and interfere building these relationships. The aim of this paper is to compare the main cooperation process’ motivations and barriers between university and industry in Brazil and Ireland. This is a study of multiple cases and configures itself as exploratory, with a qualitative approach . Data collection was executed by conducting a questionnaire with six technology transfer offices from Brazilian universities and three from Irish universities. The results show that the main motivations of Brazilian offices stem from financial issues and the possibility of being recognized whilst the Irish offices derived from social aspects. Regarding barriers, for the Brazilian offices these are mainly cultural and for the Irish offices the lack of entrepreneurial culture and the focus on basic science are the more common aspects, however, both experience excessive or rigid regulations

Entrepreneurial universities and sustainable development : the network bricolage process of academic entrepreneurs

This paper studies the network bricolage process of academic entrepreneurs (AEs). Based on a qualitative study, surprisingly, it shows how these entrepreneurs still encounter institutional barriers which exist in universities, in particular regarding building the social capital needed for exploiting their business ideas, and they are not, as expected, well connected to the existing formal networks but rather to the informal ones. This paper uses the bricolage approach of entrepreneurship and the literature on academic entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial universities, and social capital. In-depth interviews with key informants were conducted. Specifically, the study reveals the existence of a relevant network bricolage process of these AEs using informal versus formal networks to develop their ventures. As policy implications, there is a need for a better support from different university levels in order to increase the engagement in entrepreneurial activities of the different individuals. Universities should take a more proactive role when fostering AE activity and solve several barriers that still exist regarding knowledge transfer and entrepreneurship (e.g., bureaucracy and lack of confidence). For AEs, they need to take a more proactive role in building networks and ‘see-sawing’ between both types of network (formal and informal). By doing this, they can overcome the lack of knowledge, build trust, and improve word-of-mouth about their companies. All of this will benefit the university knowledge exchange. As a contribution, this paper explains the behavior of individual entrepreneurs when they exploit business ideas using the networks they have at hand in order to overcome institutional barriers in universities. Furthermore, it describes the process of the selection (‘see-sawing’ metaphor) of informal versus formal networks by AEs when applying their network bricolage

Dealing with heterogeneity: An analysis of Spanish universities

Universities are highly dependent on regulatory frameworks, the geographical setting as well as on requirements for the creation of the different outputs they pursue. As a result, universities are heterogeneous organizations. This study analyses universities’ heterogeneity in Spain. By using a dataset from the Spanish higher education system, we model the objective function of universities and investigate which factors help explain universities’ performance, in terms of the three missions that they mostly perform (teaching, research and technology transfer). Also, a cluster analysis is performed to categorise Spanish universities. The findings contribute to better understand the different behaviours shown by universities. The findings underline the heterogeneity of Spanish universities: while some universities focus more on formation (teaching) goals, other universities excel at disseminating knowledge through different scientific outputs. The study concludes with a detailed inter- and intra- group analysis.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Mind the Gap: Lessons from the UK to Brazil about the Roles of TTOs throughout Collaborative R&D Projects

The literature about collaboration for innovation has reported fundamental activities performed by intermediaries. In this paper, universities' technology transfer offices (TTOs) are placed as intermediaries between academic research and the industry. Our study focuses on collaborative research and development (R&D) projects between universities and industry in order to understand the roles of TTOs throughout the whole duration of the project. The main aim of this paper is to identify the roles of TTOs throughout collaborative R&D projects and suggest some lessons for Brazilian TTOs based on the experience of the United Kingdom. Through qualitative case studies in the United Kingdom and Brazil, the analyses show that both TTOs performed critical activities for collaborative R&D projects. Similar activities at both TTOs were the management of partnerships in terms of negotiating contracts and the protection and licensing of intellectual property. Findings also show that the search for partners in the beginning of the project, the pacifier role of the TTO to help mutual understanding, and the active commercialisation of academic research to external partners happened only in the UK case, which may generate implications for TTOs in Brazil.publishedVersio

Systematic Literature Review on Academic Entrepreneurship by Bibliometric Metadata Analysis

The purpose of this article is to map the field of Academic Entrepreneurship focusing on the search for models that evaluate the viability of intellectual property as a product. The study was based on articles retrieved from the Web of Science database covering the period from 1988 to 2020, where the metadata data analysis was carried out using the RStudio software, bibliometrix package, and the web interface Biblioshiny, and a systematic review was conducted following the PRISMA protocol, Extension for Scoping Reviews. The findings revealed that the main objectives of studies on academic entrepreneurship are related to the analysis of human (training, leadership, and motivation), physical and management resources, as they are pointed out as the most necessary incentives to improve universities AE. Therefore, it was concluded that most models on AE are for the evaluation of the development of entrepreneurship in the academic environment and there is a research gap to develop models aiming at the commercialization of intellectual property

Enablers and barriers to involvement in commercialisation

Universities are facing growing pressure to contribute towards innovation which has social impact and which contributes to economic development. Researchers mainly in the Science and Engineering fields are the primary sources of innovation outputs from universities and as such their involvement in commercialisation activities directly adds to the growth of innovative outputs from publicly financed research. Technology Transfer Offices (TTO) have been established at universities across South Africa to foster the involvement of researchers in commercialisation activities, to champion the innovation conversation within higher education institutions and to progress innovations from concept to application in society. This study focussed on understanding the factors which enable or create a barrier to the involvement of researchers in commercialisation activities at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University. The key elements examined in this study include the researchers’ perception of enablers (monetary and nonmonetary incentives) and barriers to involvement at national, institutional and individual levels. This study undertook to understand the perceptions of researchers of enablers and barriers to involvement in commercialisation at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University. Researchers in the two faculties of Science and Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology were approached to anonymously complete an electronic survey, the questions for which were developed from literature. The results from the survey were analysed using descriptive statistics and hypothesis testing. This study finds that a combination of incentives is necessary to enable researcher involvement and to lower barriers to involvement in commercialisation research. A set of recommendations based on the study are put forward on how such recommendations can be implemented

Knowledge Based View of University Tech Transfer—A Systematic Literature Review and Meta-Analysis

Research and technology commercialization at research-intensive universities has helped to develop provincial economies resulting in university startups, the growth of other new companies and associated employment. University technology transfer offices (TTOs) oversee the process of technology transfer into the commercial marketplace and these organizational units can be considered in the context of enabling effective knowledge management. However, what enables productive TTO performance has not been comprehensively researched. Therefore, this research study adopted the knowledge-based view as the theoretical construct to support a comprehensive investigation into this area. This was achieved through employing a systematic literature review (SLR) combined with a robust meta-analysis. The SLR identified an initial total of 10,126 articles in the first step of the review process, with 44 studies included in the quantitative synthesis, and 29 quantitative empirical studies selected for the meta-analysis. The research study identified that the relationship between TTO knowledge management and knowledge deployment as well as startup business performance is where TTOs secure the strongest returns