Moving from Spontaneous to Cooperative/Concurrent R&D in Biotechnology - The Case of Biosensors

The aim of this work is to investigate the mechanism of the transition phase leading from the spontaneous R&D in nanobiotechnology, carried out by independent research groups (IRGs), to coordinated research based on concurrent engineering practices. For the needs of the present study, spontaneous R&D is defined as a ´push on´ tendency/attempt/procedure characterizing scientific research performed within an academic environment; concurrent R&D is defined as a ´pull out´ tendency/attempt/procedure, owing to the processing-to-commercialization organized exploitation of the intellectual product derived from IRGs; transition phase is defined as the appearance of knowledge concentrators which select relevant works of IRGs in order to transform them to a form promising for marketing