Measuring return on investment (ROI) for military to private sector technology transfer

Summary form only given. One of the most intriguing strategies implemented to enhance the nation´s technological position is the active transfer of technologies developed primarily for public purposes to the private sector for new commercial products. Such technology transfer has been extremely critical for the Department of Defense and the individual military services. One of the primary reasons the military services have been hesitant to enter into technology transfer activities is their inability to measure the potential returns from the activities, given that the services are expending their own research and development resources to manage the transfer. The purpose of this paper is to provide a framework to develop a model to estimate the return on investment for individual technology transfer projects