Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

This paper to answers the question, “What are the frontiers for studying technology transfer as public policy?” I present a brief review of literature to place university technology transfer in the context of science and technology policy. Next, I report preliminary insights from empirical research conducted on practitioners from university and industry about university technology transfer. Lastly, based on these empirical insights, I offer frontiers by which public policy scholars can further technology transfer research.

Technology transfer is the process of translating scientific findings into a commercial application (Association of University Technology Managers, 2018) and it is one of the foremost challenges to innovations in science and technology (Allard, 2018; Trousset, 2014; Bozeman, 2000). New knowledge and technology can be created although society will not reap benefits until the knowledge or technology has been transferred into a commercial application. Research universities and public laboratories (e.g. the National Laboratory System of the United States) represent an ecosystem ripe with invention and one that faces commercialization challenges. Only a fraction of technologies that universities patent is transferred to a commercial application.

The discussion of technology transfer as public policy is underrepresented since it has typically been studied from the perspective of firms and management of technology transfer or licensing offices. The primary discussion among public policy scholars appearsin the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management which begins to note the importance of technology transfer in the context of renewable energy (Tang and Popp, 2016) and foreign direct investment (Baccini, Li and Mirkina, 2014).

This paper presents data from a study that collects the opinions of experts toward technology transfer (see Allard, Hurley, and Allard, 2018). The study uses the Delphi technique to identify key barriers to successful licensing of inventions through the technology transfer process. The Delphi Technique is an iterative group communication process that promotes participants to identify areas where their perceptions converge and diverge (Daleky and Helmer, 1963) and is useful for policy investigation (Landeta, 2006). Data is collected through at least four survey instruments with the goal of participants identifying points of convergence. The data collection will be completed in summer 2018 so it will reflect current opinions and experiences.

I analyze responses from the study using content analysis, specifically a summative technique (Hsieh and Shannon, 2005). I identify key trends of how participants discuss the impact of governmental decisions on technology transfer organization and behavior. In this preliminary analysis, I look for areas of policy research that the participants believe to be significant and for which there is little existing literature.

Lastly, I identify frontiers for public policy scholars by which public policy scholars can research technology transfer in the future. Technology transfer involves local, state, and national levels of government decisions. This research is significant for scholars in the science and technology policy and national security and defense policy communities because its insights into policy impacts regarding the translation of new knowledge and technology into commercial applications.