Towards an understanding of the commercialization drivers of research findings in Iran

Taking a look at the performance of Iranian universities and research centres, one might notice that despite their Research and Development (R&D) capacities, most have fallen short in research commercialization, leaving them dependent on government funding. Hence, certain mechanisms should be designed for facilitating successful research commercialization in Iran, beginning with the identification of its drivers. Existing commercialization models for developed countries are not necessarily applicable to a developing country such as Iran, which imports technologies and has little in the way of private sector investment in R&D. As a result, the current study seeks to extract research commercialization drivers from the perspective of Iranian researchers and develop a model based on institutional and local contexts specific to Iran. The study used an interpretive-qualitative approach based on three stages: documentary research, interviews and grounded theory. First, an extensive review of the existing literature was conducted to identify the research commercialization drivers noted in previous studies. From there, a theoretical saturation index was used and a total of 30 researchers who were familiar with the concepts of commercialization were selected and interviewed through a purposive sampling procedure. The list of drivers compiled from the extant literature was then supplemented with their comments. In the third stage, grounded theory was used to analyze the drivers and develop the conceptual model. The results of the study revealed that the most important drivers of research commercialization in Iran are designing managerial mechanisms; creating strategic alliances; modifying the educational system; improving the research structure; modifying contextual factors; creating supportive infrastructure; and strengthening researchers’ positive characteristics.