Involving Practitioners in Research–A Key to Successful Technology Transfer

Abstract

Personal contact has been identified by many authors as a prerequisite for success = ful technology transfer. The most successful way of optimizing personal contact is the involvement of user agencies in research. The paper identifies opportunities for practitioner involvement at the following stages of the research process: the identification of research needs; research planning; research and development; and the packaging of research findings. Practitioner involvement could under certain circumstances limit research application to the needs of one user agency only and precautionary measures should be taken. The major initiative for involving users in research should be ‘push' from research funding organizations, but co-operative ‘pull' from user agencies are necessary for successful involvement.