Activities of higher education institutions in the technology transfer

Abstract

The article is devoted to the transfer of technologies created in the framework of research and development by the higher education institutions (HEIs), which are subordinated to the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, as one of the key components of innovation activity. The purpose of the article is to evaluate the results of HEIs activities in the field of technology transfer, to identify the main problems and the most effective ways to solve them. The work was carried out within the framework of innovative legislation by a monitoring method conducted based on the information of the main spending units of the budget for the transfer of technologies created by the budget, which are subordinated to the Ministry of Education and Science. The results of the study are presented, and it shows the next: in 2018, HEIs, which subordinates to MESU, transferred 969 technologies, of which almost all (93.2%) were given to industrial enterprises. Compared to 2017, the number of transferred technologies has overall decreased, but only in the domestic market. Moreover, the volumes of technology transfer revenues have increased both in the domestic and foreign markets due to the increased competitiveness of the transferred technologies, especially in the external market, where with the small increase in the number of the technologies transferred there was a significant increase in the amount of technology transfer revenues. By type of transfer, “know-how”, agreements for the acquisition (transfer) of technology” were preferred, both in the domestic and foreign markets. For the period 2016–2018, the dynamics of received technology transfer revenues is positive. In 2016, the National Technical University “Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute” was the leader in the sphere of technology transfer, and in 2017 and 2018 — the Sumy State University. The main problem is that the transmitted technologies were created only at the expense of enterprises and contracting entities for the direct introduction and development of innovative activity of enterprises, which does not contribute to the expansion of the number of HEIs in the field of technology transfer. In order to solve the problem and activate innovative development, it is proposed to provide state financial support for innovation activity in the HEIs, in particular through innovative programs, government procurement and individual innovation projects, as provided by the Law on Innovation.