The Evolution of University-Based Knowledge Transfer Structures. The EUIMA Collaborative Research Project Papers

The modernisation process of universities has historically highlighted the necessity of providing support structures to facilitate contacts and relationships between research groups and the outside environment, with the objective of increasing the quantity and improving the quality of collaborative research activity. The first steps in this direction have been the internal Knowledge Transfer Offices (KTOs). Universities have created these internal technostructures within a typically administrative culture. Whilst the benefit of such structures has been undeniable, a number of cultural issues have emerged which need to be considered within the overall picture of how to develop a KTO system. On the one hand, the existence of a technostructure within a highly traditional administrative culture such as the university administration has created a series of acceptability issues with administrative colleagues. On the other hand, research staff who are not used to accessing expert support from their internal administration have not immediately been prepared to profit from the new opportunities made available. The activities carried out by these structures were initially aimed at pioneering communication with external players. However, as the collaborative culture of research has undergone incremental growth and the quantity of relationships and contracts has increased, so these internal offices have adapted their activities to the immediate requirements of their internal clients (researchers) by providing more routine support such as standard procedures and methodologies. At the same time, the growth of external collaboration has motivated in particular the more active universities to extend their KTO activities and take them closer to the market, as well as to create "Innovation Ecosystems." The authors have found a wide variety of models across the case studies that they have examined and herein provide an overview of these solutions in relation to their regional contexts. These ecosystems range from externalised offices fully owned by the university or, more often, by local institutional partners (including in some cases private partners), to science parks or joint laboratories which all maintain elements of the original university KTO services. Findings also showed that in the case of well-established KTO strategies, many universities had clear mission statements linking their research objectives to economic regional development. Finally, it was found that the development of KTO activity as a whole is linked to: (1) the internal "research culture" of universities and their ability to converse with companies; (2) the external "technology and innovation culture" and its level of confidence in research structures; (3) the KTO's own capacity to invest; and (4) the level of development of the regional KT ecosystem. Where external KTOs (external to universities, science parks, and other joint facilities) were created, these new organisations were generally planned as complementary to existing KTOs, not as a substitute. Examples of this trend are Chalmers University of Technology: Innovation Office and Chalmers Innovation; Hamburg University of Technology: Innovation Office and TuTech Innovation; and Ruhr University Bochum: Internal KTO and Rubitec.