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The aim of this article is to shed light on the decision-making process at university technology transfer offices and show that the last steps in the process of international patent extension, when costs step up, tend to be only taken conditional on the existence of a licensing agreement. This information has so far been underexploited by policymakers and innovation scholars in search of innovation indicators. We argue that the number of international patent families filed by a university can be used as a rough indicator of technology transfer activity mediated through patents, especially in the context of tight public university budgets and national patent systems with fee reductions for universities. To support our argument, we review qualitative information from interviews at technology transfer offices, regulations, and internal statutes from a selection of Spanish universities and present a statistical analysis of the relation between patent internationalisation and licensing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to provide a deeper understanding of the individual factors behind scientists' involvement in a wide variety of knowledge transfer and exchange (KTE) activities. By doing so, the article addresses three major shortcomings in the literature. First, this article considers scientists' involvement in both formal and informal KTE activities. Secondly, the study focuses not only on KTE activities with the private sector, but also with other types of agents. Thirdly, the article adopts an individual approach to distinguish between three types of KTE predictors: individual capacities, training and career trajectories, and motivations. Overall, the results of the regression model applied to a sample of 1,295 researchers active in the largest public research organization in Spain (CSIC) suggest that, while some individual features are connected to some KTE activities, other individual predictors (e.g. multitasking and interdisciplinarity) are more evenly associated to a variety of KTE mechanisms and users. Based on those findings, the article offers policy recommendations to craft more accurate policies to encourage scientists' KTE engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is an increasing social expectation regarding the joint realisation of scientific and societal impact from publicly funded research. Achieving this goal involves facing important challenges, which affect individual researchers, research performing organisations, and the science governance system as a whole. This special section includes conceptual, methodological, and empirical papers that aim to contribute to the building of an improved appreciation of the factors and dynamics shaping the intertwined quest for scientific quality and societal impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]