Harnessing Public Research for Innovation in the 21st Century: An International Assessment of Knowledge Transfer Policies (Intellectual Property, Innovation and Economic Development)

Universities and public research institutes play a key role in enabling the application of scientific breakthroughs and innovations in the marketplace. Many countries – developed and developing alike – have implemented national strategies to support the application or commercialization of knowledge produced by public research organizations. Universities and public research institutes have introduced practices to support these activities, for instance by including knowledge transfer to promote innovation as a core part of their mission. As a result, a vital question for policymakers is how to improve the efficiency of these knowledge transfer practices to help maximize innovation-driven growth and/or to seek practical solutions to critical societal challenges. This book aims to develop a conceptual framework to evaluate knowledge transfer practices and outcomes; to improve knowledge transfer metrics, surveys and evaluation frameworks; and to generate findings on what works and what does not, and to propose related policy lessons. This book is also available as Open Access.

Anthony Arundel is a Professorial Fellow at United Nations University – Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology and concurrently an Adjunct Professor of Innovation at the University of Tasmania in Hobart, Australia. He is an expert in the design, implementation and analysis of innovation surveys. His research interests cover innovation measurement, innovation methods and strategies in both the public and private sectors, knowledge transfer and environmental innovation.

Suma Athreye is Professor of Technology Strategy at Essex Business School, London. She has worked on several areas of technology management, including research on the technology-related activities of multinational enterprises, as well as the technology licensing behaviour of firms. Her recent work has been on the incentive effect of patents on firm profits and R&D, the role of technology leadership in encouraging patenting in open innovation contexts and more recently on the barriers to the use of formal protection methods among UK firms.

Sacha Wunsch-Vincent is Head of Section in the Department for Economics and Data Analytics at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in Geneva and is co-editor of the Global Innovation Index. His previous roles include being an economist at the OECD Directorate for Science, Technology, and Industry, and Swiss National Science Fellow at the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology, and the Peterson Institute for International Economics (Washington, DC).