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Universities can promote entrepreneurship and innovation both by training professionals and by offering knowledge resulting from their research. Traditionally, industrial development has benefited from technology transfer (TT) from universities. Although the TT is very known and used, co-ownership and economic exploitation after a TT process remain a challenge to formal University-Industry agreements. In this study we discuss the notion of university-industry coproduction as a means to address formal agreement after TT. The case study is a Brazilian national Program, called CEURS - "Training and Studies for Urban and Regional Sustainability". The main goal of CEURS is to provide practical training to individuals and teams on sustainability matters, focused on how to fulfill the UN's SDG 2030 Agenda locally (i.e., how to empower projects that are already at the community level so that they can become city programs). To do so, CEURS project was led by an academic network, sponsored by national government agencies. The project was developed at the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC) by academics and students of the Graduate Program in Engineering and Knowledge Management, from the research group on Co-production in Digital Commons, in Brazil. CEURS team has developed CEURS Platform, a digital education platform, currently in the process of being publicly transferred to be augmented and operated at a national level. In this article, we analyze the institutional technology transfer agreements available to CEURS regarding the need to meet project demands for technology licensing, technology transfer, open innovation, and joint patents. We offer a critical analysis of a current regulatory process in technology transfer in an academic project that combines education, development, and social demand fulfillment. We conclude that a technology transfer licensing agreement can include principles that may fulfill CEURS project needs for nationalization through university-industry co-production. This study contributes to academics, innovation offices, policymakers, and university managers in formulating diligent and fast processes and strategies through technology transfers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public universities in the United States are divided into different levels of type by research agendas. Large public universities (typically known as RI research oriented) are directed to serve the public interest by developing transferrable knowledge (patents and intellectual property) that can leverage the public investment made in these large universities and their research agendas through state and federal funding by enhancing social and commercial goals of the funding entities. This paper is an impact assessment of formal and informal industry collaboration and knowledge transfer activities study and looked at knowledge transfer incubators, secondary information and public reports such as patent filings to determine if the level of knowledge transfers was increasing or decreasing or staying the same at two large public universities in the USA (North Carolina Charlotte and North Carolina State). My primary hypothesis for the research was that much of the research and knowledge at public universities was not finding its way to industry use either through licensing or other means and that various methods (i.e., research papers) of transferring this knowledge were ineffective in making this transfer. My research concluded that despite strong state and federal funding of this research as well as private grants researchers tended to concentrate on research that enhanced their academic publications' reputations. The practical economic benefits of much of this research was doubtful. This research is important as R1 universities increasingly reward academics on both grants/patents revenue and papers produced for first rate journals. This paper researches the various parameters to understand key technology transfer relationships to academic papers and patents produced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an introduction to a business development programme called "The Innovation Network Concept" seen from knowledge transfer perspective. It is developed by the research institute SINTEF in Trondheim, Norway, and specifically designed for Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) that want to expand and strengthen their innovation abilities. The main objectives of the Concept are mapping the company's needs for technology development, analysis of the current situation, definition and implementation of technology projects, technology watch, marketing, cooperation and networking. To accomplish the technology projects, expert knowledge from relevant R&D institutes, universities or other knowledge environments are used. The concept facilitates each company to work in close cooperation with a researcher/mentor and a process manager in a given period, normally 1.5 years. Apart from the specific technology challenges defined by the project, the company has the opportunity to make use of the researcher or even a consultant to look at other special challenges within the company, e.g. strategy, creativity and access to ideas, competence and knowledge management, organizational development, export, and other areas that need special attention. The paper presents the Norwegian approach and experiences of competence brokering in regional innovation and development, and focuses on describing aspects like brokering methods, working steps, current practice, and the role of competence brokering to contribute and develop industrial networks and clusters. The paper is based on literature studies, reflection and experiences from competence brokers' point of view, and lessons learned in the establishment and implementation of the Innovation Network Concept, especially when it comes to knowledge transfer activities, business development and innovation in SMEs. Promoting regional development and creating industrial clusters lead to nationwide value creation. The paper aims at contributing to more understanding on regional development and its role in developing industrial networks, by focusing on collaboration and knowledge transfer between organisations. This focus can trigger new ideas, and lead to further discussion that can generate new knowledge. The paper also raises certain related issues, primarily about how to achieve better results in improvement of processes and further development of programmes for competence brokering and networking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the emergence of the knowledge-based economy, intellectual capital (IC) has gained prominence in literature. In a knowledge-based society, knowledge is recognised as the driver of productivity and growth (OECD, 2011) thus this intangible asset is regarded as the hidden value of an organisation. Parallel to this development, universities role in society has changed whereby they are expected to contribute directly to economic development through technology transfer. University technology transfer (referred to from here onwards as UTT) is an uncertain and risky process whereby multiple stakeholders interact to commercialise knowledge residing within universities. Thus, it is a knowledge intensive process where competitive advantage is often based on intangible assets, namely lC. IC and knowledge management are closely intertwined with both concepts being linked to superior innovation performance. However, very little research has looked at this vital intangible side related to knowledge transfer and exchange within UTT (Lockett et al., 2003; Miller et al., 2011). This paper attempts to help fill this gap by exploring IC within a UTT context, with the aim of unravelling its importance for knowledge transfer and sharing. A qualitative methodology of one university was undertaken to explore this under-researched area. Various factors attributed to IC were found to both enhance and hinder knowledge sharing during university technology commercialisation processes. These factors are broken up into human capital factors which comprised of networking capability, learning orientation and attitudes; relational capital factors which comprised of relationship building, trust and synergy and structural capital factors which comprised of procedures and social integration mechanisms. This research found that the three key components of IC play a key role in affecting knowledge transfer and sharing; and consequently impact UTT activities. Research on IC is still in its infancy and more empirical studies are needed to explore the managerial issues related to IC (Dumay and Garanina, 2013); thus this research will give UTT practitioners and University stakeholders an insight of the importance of valuing and managing their intangible assets to aid the entrepreneurial mission of universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the emergence of the knowledge based economy, universities have undertaken a new 'entrepreneurial' role whereby they can contribute directly to economic development through the commercialisation of knowledge residing within universities. However, technology commercialisation from universities, by means of licences, spin out firms and joint ventures can by very risky. In order to increase the chances of success, knowledge flows and exchanges from multiple actors and entities is required to help develop, commercialise and market embryonic technologies. To date very little research has looked at the effect multiple stakeholders' roles and interactions has in relation to the commercialisation of technologies within universities. This is surprising considering the importance of multi-stakeholder knowledge to aid the chances of university technology transfer success. Therefore it is important to understand the knowledge transfer and sharing processes between multiple stakeholders and how they can be managed. This research attempts to fill this gap in research by exploring the effect multi-stakeholder roles and interactions have on university technology commercialisation. The research was exploratory in nature with the aim of inductively building theory in an under researched area. A qualitative methodology within one intrinsic case study of a university was undertaken. Data was collected in four stages by means of pilot study interviews (stage one), in-depth interviews of multiple stakeholders, namely the technology transfer office staff, principal investigators, enterprise co-ordinators and government (stage two), observational analysis of technology transfer meetings over a period of 8 months (stage three) and repeat interviews of multiple stakeholders (stage four). It was found that stakeholder roles and relationships were important in relation to access, absorption and exploitation of external knowledge. However, the interactions and relationships between the PI, TTO, government and industry were power relationships since often they affected knowledge transfer behaviour. Power relationships were found to be the result of university remit, conflicting objectives between the stakeholders and disharmony as a result of technology assessments and technology transfer rules and process. These power relationships were found to potentially impede knowledge transfer and sharing which consequently could inhibit university technology commercialisation. This research is of interest to policy makers, practitioners and researchers alike since it provides knowledge and understanding of the roles, knowledge transfer and exchanges between stakeholders which can be used to develop future policies and interventions with the hope of enhancing university technology commercialisation success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study highlights the complete management process of a bioengineering knowledge, and how it follows all the steps of the Valorisation chain that contains the following five steps: detection, selection, evaluation, protection and commercialization. In this process we show how researchers, IP managers and business development managers work together to achieve a common aim. The knowledge selected to advance in the value chain before being transferred to the market is a technology of a Biofeedback equipment specifically for urinary incontinence. Biofeedback instruments for the treatment of urinary incontinence have the purpose of generating (and also recording for further analysis) signals directly related to the activity of the pelvic floor muscles. Although a few instruments use the exerted pressure as the measured signal, the most frequently employed signal is the electrical activity associated to the muscle contractions or electromyogram (EMG). This Biofeedback case developed in our University has followed a methodology of Valorization in which the interaction between researchers, IP managers and business development managers is significant to know the market requirements and to direct the research efforts towards the market necessities; that is why the last step of the design is a commercialization planning to explode the technology. In this case, the goal is to find an industrialized partner interested in producing the clinical validated prototype following all the EC regulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since intellectual capital is a key factor in company's profitability and, on the other hand, knowledge assets provides a sustainable competitive advantage, it is fundamental to know how to evaluate these intangible assets in order to be able to offer a support for the management's decision whether to allocate investments into achieving them or to continue the analysis of the market for other assets. It is also important for the inventor, willing to sell his invention, since he or she needs a correct value diagnosis versus the alleged market price. In this paper, the authors have decided to present some methods of knowledge evaluation, knowledge converted into industrial property (IP) as part of a company's intangible assets. Through IP registration and technology transfer, this knowledge ends up producing benefits for its creators, as well as for their buyers, so, it should be evaluated properly. We intended to write a practical paper, so we have chosen to present a case study consisting of a technology transfer process of 5 knowledge production that we have selected from our portfolio. These are recuperative and eco-friendly technologies belonging to a research institute and transferred to economic agents willing to develop their business by applying the above mentioned technologies. Related to the 5 recuperative and eco-friendly technologies, the paper presents the production costs, their preparation for transfer stage (negotiation phase), finally being sold under only one tranche of royalties, as well as the main advantages of achieving and utilizing the technologies, including the estimation of the future profits for the buyer companies and the figures obtained. One of the most interesting things to be observed is the way the negotiation phase evolves: the knowledge of the buyer that is aware of the technology's value (since he had all the necessary evaluation means), the seller's lack of knowledge of the seller, willing to sell for less than he could, happy he has found a buyer and being in need of recovering his initial investment (the amount offered was an important one, but still not the right one), the role of the technology transfer intermediary in balancing the positions and finally in transferring the inventions. Last but not least, we emphasize the role of funds sustaining knowledge production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study highlights the complete management process of a bioengineering knowledge, and how it follows all the steps of the Valorisation chain that contains the following five steps: detection, selection, evaluation, protection and commercialization. In this process we show how researchers, IP managers and business development managers work together to achieve a common aim. The knowledge selected to advance in the value chain before being transferred to the market is a technology of a Biofeedback equipment specifically for urinary incontinence. Biofeedback instruments for the treatment of urinary incontinence have the purpose of generating (and also recording for further analysis) signals directly related to the activity of the pelvic floor muscles. Although a few instruments use the exerted pressure as the measured signal, the most frequently employed signal is the electrical activity associated to the muscle contractions or electromyogram (EMG). This Biofeedback case developed in our University has followed a methodology of Valorization in which the interaction between researchers, IP managers and business development managers is significant to know the market requirements and to direct the research efforts towards the market necessities; that is why the last step of the design is a commercialization planning to explode the technology. In this case, the goal is to find an industrialized partner interested in producing the clinical validated prototype following all the EC regulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since intellectual capital is a key factor in company's profitability and, on the other hand, knowledge assets provides a sustainable competitive advantage, it is fundamental to know how to evaluate these intangible assets in order to be able to offer a support for the management's decision whether to allocate investments into achieving them or to continue the analysis of the market for other assets. It is also important for the inventor, willing to sell his invention, since he or she needs a correct value diagnosis versus the alleged market price. In this paper, the authors have decided to present some methods of knowledge evaluation, knowledge converted into industrial property (IP) as part of a company's intangible assets. Through IP registration and technology transfer, this knowledge ends up producing benefits for its creators, as well as for their buyers, so, it should be evaluated properly. We intended to write a practical paper, so we have chosen to present a case study consisting of a technology transfer process of 5 knowledge production that we have selected from our portfolio. These are recuperative and eco-friendly technologies belonging to a research institute and transferred to economic agents willing to develop their business by applying the above mentioned technologies. Related to the 5 recuperative and eco-friendly technologies, the paper presents the production costs, their preparation for transfer stage (negotiation phase), finally being sold under only one tranche of royalties, as well as the main advantages of achieving and utilizing the technologies, including the estimation of the future profits for the buyer companies and the figures obtained. One of the most interesting things to be observed is the way the negotiation phase evolves: the knowledge of the buyer that is aware of the technology's value (since he had all the necessary evaluation means), the seller's lack of knowledge of the seller, willing to sell for less than he could, happy he has found a buyer and being in need of recovering his initial investment (the amount offered was an important one, but still not the right one), the role of the technology transfer intermediary in balancing the positions and finally in transferring the inventions. Last but not least, we emphasize the role of funds sustaining knowledge production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]