TEchNOLOGy TRaNSFER MODEL - Javna agencija

KNOWLEDGE FOR BUSINESS IN BORDER REGIONS
Dark blue marks the very important and light blue the very unimportant motives. Considering the table, there are some interesting
results to mention: first, the enterprises value the motivation “access to specific skills” the most whereas the recruitment of
graduates seems to be less important, which is slightly surprising because the recruitment of graduates and students seems to be
one possibility to gain access to specific know-how and skills. Secondly, the results for the motivation “specific problem solving” are
consistent within the findings in the theory. Thirdly, the people mentioned the access to R&D infrastructure and the lack of internal
R&D-resources as a driver for co-operations with research institutions. This is a result which is fitting due to the fact that SMEs are
faced with a lack of resources.
6.4 Recommendations for the knowledge transfer process
Considering the theoretical inputs and the results gained from the investigation leaves the question open what could be done for
supporting and fostering the knowledge transfer process from universities and research institutions to SMEs?
The following tables sum up recommendations of theory and practice:
Figure 9: Recommendations for research institutions
Figure 10: Recommendations for SMEs
Resulting from the empirical investigation in Styria, the following findings can be pointed out and should be kept in mind while
working as a technology transfer facilitator. It must be mentioned that these findings are only hints and insights gained from interviewing
14 companies and are not statistically valued results. Nevertheless, it could be summarized that:
• the main advantages for SMEs to co-operate with external research institutions are cost-savings and broadening of horizons;
• the most influencing cooperation characteristic seems to be the geographical proximity;
• the personal transfer forms such as information exchange in form of informal conversations and the supervision of master or doctoral
theses represent the most favored ways of knowledge transfer;
• the time factor seems to be the main obstacle in knowledge co-operations;
• companies have good experiences with technology transfer offices;
• knowledge transfer is only considered successful when co-operation projects lead to new products and processes.
6.5 The linkages between knowledge transfer and innovation process
Dealing with co-operation projects leads to the question whether the innovation process within the enterprise and the knowledge
transfer process are somehow linked? And if they are linked, what do the linkages look like?
At the beginning of Module 6 it is shown how knowledge transfer processes could be designed and applied in practice (figures 2
and 3). The following figure shows one possibility of an innovation process, consisting of the main three phases: development of
ideas, acceptation and realization of ideas.
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