Literature review The knowledge and technology transfer process
Within the IO1 – Engagement Readiness Investigation Report, CU has primarily performed Desktop research focused on describing the knowledge and technology transfer process as means for informing the readiness concept including 1) what is knowledge transfer (KT) and technology transfer (TT), 2) what are the processes underpinning KT and TT, 3) who is involved and what are their interests and finally, 4) how it contributes to the concept of university readiness. Secondly, CU presented the results of a benchmarking activity focused on the assessment tool called Knowledge Transfer Metrics which has been developed by the Competence Centre on Technology Transfer of the JRC, in partnership with ASTP. The report provides 10 recommendations towards the definition and use of a common set of European KT indicators and states that those should be considered a simpler assessment of outputs. The indicators recommended in this report include both outputs and inputs and fall into four groups: internal context, environment, activity, impact. Using the input and output indicators will enable a PRO to get a sense of the effects of external factors or internal operational factors. To do this, however, requires the ability to access the data or data comparisons and this is where a centralised repository has an important role to play. Finally, CU has conducted empirical research through expert interviews between University-Business Cooperation (UBC) and HEI managers. The interviews have been carried out between March and April 2021 to 10 interviewees (5 UBC + 5 HEI managers representatives).
“It is not easy to define what is added value”
Academic engagement is mainly about the time capacity of people who see added value in cooperation with a third party. It is not easy to define what is added value, because for someone it can be money, for others an interesting research topic and for others access to data provided through collaboration. From the perspective of the resources needed, the answers were very similar, as almost every respondent emphasized quality human resources, which, however, must be sufficiently paid and equipped, so we cannot talk about the necessity of one resource without the presence of another. In the conditions of the CEE region, the most common barrier was the mentioned legislative framework and a lack of interest on the side of the government and the university management, followed by insufficient time capacity of academics in the performance of the first two HEIs missions. The main motivator is the research interest that is necessary for engagement. However, the answers are quite difficult to generalize, as they differ according to the cooperating side of UBC and the geographical location.
“we cannot talk about the necessity of one resource without the presence of another”
Authors: Hana Kosova, Serena Mancini, Peter Ded’o
Blog editors: Alexandra Zinovyeva (UIIN) and Fleur Schellekens (UIIN)
Photo by Mark Basarab on Unsplash
