Science and Technology (S&T), like Research and Development (R&D), has become a case of capital investment like any other economic sector. This has distanced R&D from social needs, to the extent that part of R&D ends up actually being fictitious, in the sense that it acquires a price on the market but never becomes part of material…

Australian policy relating to knowledge exchange has never been well articulated, notwithstanding that the nexus between knowledge, engagement and higher education in Australia has been on the national agenda for several decades (Grattan Institute, 2013). In universities, this policy deficit is reflected in a lack of project management and…

The Triple Helix, representing university-industry-government interactions, was rooted in a 1993 International Workshop on University-Industry Relations at UNAM's Centro Para la Innovacion Technologica in Mexico City. Impelled by Mexican reality, where university-industry interactions and the institutions themselves operated within a governmental…

Expectations for impacts from research create demand for effective knowledge exchange between academic and non-academic settings. This complex process may be facilitated by "knowledge intermediaries." Learning from evaluation can advance recognition of their diverse roles and enhance these interactive relationships connecting research,…

This factsheet, the third in a series on innovation and growth, summarises a recent assessment conducted by Universities UK, HEFCE and the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG), exploring the extent to which universities in England are engaging with the 2014-2020 European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF) programme. [For the…

This "FOCUS Technical Brief" provides examples of how technology-focused grantees funded by NIDRR [National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research], such as Small Business Innovation Research projects and Rehabilitation Engineering Research Centers, can embed knowledge translation efforts throughout the technology transfer…

This factsheet, the first in a series on innovation and growth, provides an overview of the benefits of innovation vouchers, and gives some examples of how universities and Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) are including them in their European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF) strategies. [For the second factsheet in the series,…

This paper presents a tool for the indicator-based analysis of national innovation systems (ANIS). ANIS identifies the economic strengths and weaknesses of a country-wide, regional or local system and includes a comprehensive examination and evaluation of the status of existing innovation systems. The use of a particular form of expert interviews…

This brief describes the technology transfer (TT) and knowledge translation (KT) work of Dr. Gregg Vanderheiden and the Trace Research & Development Center. The Trace Research & Development Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison was established in 1971 with the development of an early augmentative communication system, which was…

Research universities are a central part of all academic systems. They are the key points of international contact and involvement. Research is produced, disseminated and in many cases imported. For developing countries, the mechanisms for the involvement of research universities in the global knowledge economy is complex, and includes issues of…

This FOCUS Technical Brief extends FOCUS No. 26, which considered the processes of knowledge translation (KT) and technology transfer (TT) in technological innovation. Here, we explain that both KT and TT contribute to accomplishing yet a third process--commercial transaction--which is the actual transformation of knowledge embodied in products…

University research is a vital building block of the nation's research and development (R&D) enterprise. While U.S. universities perform just 13 percent of total national R&D, they perform 31 percent of the nation's total research--basic and applied--and 56 percent of the nation's basic research. Because there is broad consensus that…

Massive federal education competitions like the $650 million Investing in Innovation fund have heightened interest in practical education research, but even the most promising findings aimed at improving student learning face a long, uncertain path to become something more concrete and usable for the classroom. Unlike fields such as physics or…

The Mayo Innovation Scholars Program introduces undergraduates to technology transfer in biomedical sciences by having teams of students from multiple disciplines (e.g., biology, chemistry, economics, and business) analyze inventions in development at the Mayo Clinic. Over 6 months, teams consult with inventors, intellectual property experts, and…

No one who's worked in higher education will ever confuse the experience with working in the corporate sector. Colleges and universities are simply not geared for the business of manufacturing or marketing products. The focus--as it should be--is on teaching and research. Given the wealth of talent among IT staff and faculty, however, higher ed…