The alignment of public research supply and industry demand for effective technology transfer: the case of Italy

TL;DR

This paper investigates the mismatch between public research outputs and industry demand in Italy, revealing that despite research results being of industrial interest, poor coordination and policy gaps hinder effective technology transfer.

Contribution

It provides empirical evidence on the misalignment between public research results and industry demand in Italy, highlighting the need for better policy coordination.

Findings

Most research results are of immediate industrial interest.

Many results lack Italian companies capable of exploiting them.

Misalignment alone does not fully explain poor technology transfer.

Abstract

Italy lags quite behind vis-a'-vis other industrialized countries, in public to private technology transfer. One of the possible causes might be the mismatch between new knowledge supplied by public research and industry demand. We test this hypothesis through a survey of leading public research scientists in four high-tech sectors. The findings show that most research project results seem to be of immediate industrial interest, which contrasts with the low patent and licensing performances of Italian public research institutions. For one third of all the results of the research, there are no Italian companies able to exploit them. The same, however, is not true for the remaining results, which shows that the misalignment between public supply and industry demand alone cannot account for poor technology transfer. What emerges from our investigation is that a closer coordination of research policy and industrial policy is required, as well as closer attention to initiatives which may support the transfer of public research results to domestic industry.