Technology Transfer Assessment in Regional Business Contexts

This paper proposes a procedure for the organization of meetings between leaders of research groups and representatives of R&D&I departments in companies that is inspired by speed dating. The participating candidates were first assessed and selected based on their potential for an effective linkage in accordance with certain relevant variables taken from the literature on efficiency in technology and knowledge transfer activities. The process and findings of the application of this procedure were analyzed through the action research methodology in a real case, where 12 research groups and 55 companies participated in a pilot project fostered by the public authorities. Although meetings represent a common formula to promote collaboration between universities and industry, very few academic papers have analyzed the appropriate procedures for the organization of such meetings, which could help organizers not only to achieve the best interaction possible but also to improve the matching between a research group and the companies that are potentially interested in forming a stable collaboration for sustainable transfer activities. The results show that this procedure allows research groups to efficiently achieve first contact with companies in order to assess the potential for more lasting and sustainable collaboration.