Abstract
Universities play pivotal roles when research findings are to be adopted commercially. Although these roles vary from one country to another, effective patenting and licensing procedures, as well as eventual commercialisation of scholarly inventions, reflect hard work on the part of the University mediating between the researcher and the industry through technology transfer offices (TTOs) in order to ensure that knowledge-developers take motivational and monetary credit for their findings. This paper details some existing models, processes, and roles taken up in some countries where sharing of intellectual property exists, and links it up with aspects of university–industry technology transfer, such as policies surrounding patenting, government investment and marketing, and the process of academic entrepreneurship, among others. 22 articles were found via a systematic review of literature and analysed with respect to four identified areas of focus: internal strategy, investment and market, academic entrepreneurship and policy. Based on models, processes, and roles in reviewed studies, our results indicate that new models for technology transfer mainly stem from the fact that there is no universally accepted model in the literature. Furthermore, management of technology transfer is mostly the responsibility of TTOs in most countries. While university TTOs act as intermediaries to protect the interest of the author/inventor, issues such as poor relationships between universities and industry, as well as funding, remain major challenges in many emerging economies. In contrast, researchers in western economies are mainly challenged by financial motivation and recognition within the academic domains.
Highlights
Research efforts that lead to ground-breaking findings and inventions have significant impacts on technological innovation and continuous economic development globally (Ding et al 2019).The Academia-Industry relationship has been widely described in literature (Munyoki et al 2011; Alexander et al 2018; Vick and Robertson 2018; Belitski et al 2019), and dates back to many decades ago (Noh and Lee 2019)
It may be safe to say that there is no model that can be described as being ideal for carrying out knowledge transfer. This is mainly because most existing models follow traditional techniques, e.g., the so-called “linear knowledge flow” (Bradley et al 2013), or country-specific techniques often based on the prevailing laws of the nation in which such research is carried out. It is on this premise that the current study looks at some of the technology transfer models in the body of literature with the goal of understanding how the process of TT progresses in different settings, bearing in mind the roles played by universities and other major actors
University TT models refer to a group of inter-connected steps through which scholarly inventions are made to serve public needs
Summary
Research efforts that lead to ground-breaking findings and inventions have significant impacts on technological innovation and continuous economic development globally (Ding et al 2019). The Academia-Industry relationship has been widely described in literature (Munyoki et al 2011; Alexander et al 2018; Vick and Robertson 2018; Belitski et al 2019), and dates back to many decades ago (Noh and Lee 2019). The enactment of the Bayh–Dole Act in 1980 proved to be a game-changer, further increasing the interest of universities in participating more in technology transfer (Bradley et al.2013). Universities play pivotal roles when research findings are to be adopted commercially. As well as eventual commercialisation of scholarly inventions, reflect hard work on the part of the university, which mediates between the researcher and the industry through technology transfer offices.
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