Resources in support of technology transfer: Revised and updated

We used the preceding definition to introduce our original article on resources in technology transfer that appeared in the fall 1994 issue of this publication. The emphasis is on technology transfer as a process, a series of interconnected events along a spectrum, leading from the discovery of a technology with potential value conceived in one institution up through its ultimate use by another institution. Naturally the process is frequently not a smooth one. Obstacles arise at many points along the way. These include such problems as lack of funding (by either or both parties to the process), lack of a champion to promote the technology (again in either or both parties to the process), cultural barriers within organizations, including the “not invented here” syndrome, impatience on the part of management to see quick results when it may not be possible to produce them, and lack of good information upon which to base decisions about the discovery, acquisition, adaptation, and use of technology. Clearly the technology transfer process is often expensive, protracted, and difficult.