New BMBF project launched

Together with the chair for Entrepreneurship and Family Business of Prof. Dr. Petra Moog we are pleased to announce the kick-off of the BMBF funded project: "Biotechnology institutions and health sciences - Identification of individual factors of novel transfer".

The transfer of knowledge and technology from universities and research institutions to society is regarded as an initiator for the solution of social problems. It is also considered to be a central driver of economic, social and ecological progress. Biotechnology and the health sciences are among the most important areas. Despite these welfare-economic benefits and extensive infrastructural measures to promote knowledge transfer, numerous empirical analyses for Germany indicate that a significant proportion of usable innovations from academia are not transferred to the economy and society. Little is known about the possible reasons for this situation as well as about the range of possible transfer activities. Hence, the state of research on this topic is still incomplete and there is a lack of reliable knowledge about the effectiveness and interdependencies of existing transfer activities. Therefore, the overall objective of this research project is to identify stage-specific drivers, barriers and success factors of the knowledge transfer process in biotechnology and the health sciences and to record their effects on the transfer behaviors of scientists. This project aims to systematically and empirically investigate the impact of specific contextual factors on the micro-, meso- and macro-level on the range of knowledge and technology transfer of scientists from universities, colleges, Helmholtz association, Fraunhofer, Max-Planck and Leibnitz institutes in a qualitative and quantitative way. A further objective of the project is to record the current transfer behavior and to identify anticipated future development lines and trends. For this reason, the research project is intended to form the basis for a further panel analysis, which can be continued after the conclusion of the project.