Human Medium in Technology Transfer

Abstract

To analyze problems of technology transfer between academia and industry, first, it is important to realize expectations of both sides. In my opinion, academia expects money and problems to be solved, while industry expects problem solutions and people trained in research. A question is: what is the role of these people trained in research in technology transfer from academia to industry, and why they are expected by industry? One may believe that a medium of technology transfer is paper, i.e. written documents describing problem solutions. I claim that to transfer a new technology a human medium is required. In a new technology (I emphasize word new, meaning here revolutionary) developed in academia, i.e. mostly at the theoretical level, the main concept is established, but a lot of problems remains unsolved. I mean here the research problems, not just implementation ones. If the concept is revolutionary new, it is difficult to transfer it in its integrity to a foreign team. Still more difficult is to transfer an idea how to solve the related problems in such a way that the main concept is not violated or deviated. The most efficient way to transfer technology is to use humans, i.e. the researchers who developed it, as a medium. This makes, however, a painful hole in academia, and thus is successful if academic research teams are relatively big and may be split.