Literature review on technology transfer from government laboratories to industry

Technology transfer is a broad field that ranges from internal corporate technology transfer to international technology transfer. While technology transfer among corporates, between universities and companies, have been well documented, however, technology transfer from government owned R&D institutions to private sector has not. Governments throughout the world are spending more and more national budget in R&D with the goal to enhance national competitiveness and develop their economies. With increasing global competition governments in both developed and developing countries accentuate more on public R&D investments. Nevertheless the question of how to translate these enormous public spendings to the achievement of the country´s economic goals is still not answered adequately and thus requires more investigation. A thorough review of the literature is the first step needed to gain an overall picture of the research done in this field. It also helps highlight much of the research gaps that remained to be fulfilled by future work.