Technology transfer analysis in the Italian National Research Council

This paper analyses the technology transfer (t.t.) in the nine Cnr research Institutes located in Piedmont, a highly industrialised region of the north-west of Italy. Some taxonomic criterions are used for classifying the t.t. In particularly we have two main types of actions from research structures: (A) Market-oriented technology transfer split into: strict sense and wide sense of the term. (B) Education-oriented technology transfer (training and teaching activities i.e. not generated 'financial revenues'). It is measured using physical quantities (for example, number of subjects. number of contacts, etc.). The correlation of outcomes shows that, if we consider as value of t.t. activity the 'financial revenues' (market-oriented technological transfer), the best Institutes are those operating in the technological area; instead, if we use, as indicator of t.t. activity, the number of external courses and the number of personnel trained (education-oriented technological transfer), the ranking changes to favour non-technological research institutes. Moreover, spatial dynamics of technology transfer are investigated; in particular, we verified whether the propagation of technology follows the Heigerstrand proximity-effect and finally the causes when these effects do not function. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.