Measures of technology transfer effectiveness: key dimensions and differences in their use by sponsors, developers and adopters

Federally funded R&D has been viewed as a key source of advanced technologies that, if successfully transferred to the private sector, could help rebuild America´s global competitiveness. The growing perception that the nation is not getting an adequate return from its federal R&D budget is accompanied by a growing demand for more measurable technology transfer results. Yet measures of technology transfer effectiveness are neither well defined nor universally accepted. This exploratory study focused on defining and describing the measures or metrics used in the process of transferring government-funded technologies to private sector firms. The paper presents an initial conceptual framework and an exploratory, empirically based taxonomy of metrics used in technology transfer. This taxonomy and specific measures were used to help determine which technology transfer metrics were used by various players across the federal technology transfer process. Individuals who played roles as either sponsors, developers or adopters of federally funded technologies were surveyed on their roles and the measures of transfer effectiveness used in their work units. The data showed statistically significant differences in frequency of use of the transfer measures by the three roles. Secondly, a broad set of measures were used in varying degrees by all roles. Most importantly, all three roles used most measures rather infrequently. Recommendations to guide future research are included. Recommendations are also made for technology transfer practitioners