Building Sustainable Development through Technology Transfer in a Romanian University

Abstract

Abstract:To improve university and commercial ties with industry, many universities operate a technology transfer office (TTO) as a vehicle to support the creation of spin-off companies. Run effectively, the TTO can define roles and responsibilities, structures and processes that support the creation and development of new ventures. The challenge for universities is to create TTOs with the right skill set. This paper aims to analyze the TTO activities to support transforming research outputs into commercialization in the context of the University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine from Cluj-Napoca, Romania (UASVMCN). Throughout this paper, different commercialization channels, the roles of technology transfer offices and multiple associative structures are further discussed with a special focus on agricultural open innovations and technologies. This study contributes to sustainable development of both Academia and agricultural Industry research, development and commercialization activities by illustrating current innovation and technology transfer activities produced by UASVMCN and its own TTO as a catalyst entity, a new model in Romania, so that the Academia-TTO-Economy partners association draw a functional and productive triple helix. In order to assess the sustainability of using the above-mentioned TTO, the methodological tools involving analysis are implemented. Finally, this paper states that correct operating of a university TTO is a real opportunity for technology transfer, both from the perspective of an alternative to research funding or entrepreneurship, and from the cultural perspective of the university correlation to the current trends in research, innovation and technology transfer, on a unique and entrepreneurial European market.

Structural Relationship and Influence between Open Innovation Capacities and Performances

“…Lichtenthaler [23] emphasized that firms' desorptive capacity to apply their knowledge or technology to the knowledge creation process of external organizations is complementary to internal knowledge exploitation. In the open innovation perspective, capturing value through the external commercialization of a firm's internal knowledge or technology is a significant strategy for its competitiveness and business sustainability [54]. Desorptive capacity consists of identifying the opportunities for exploiting external knowledge and transferring that knowledge to the recipient.…”

Agricultural Entrepreneurship in the European Union: Contributions for a Sustainable Development

“…Entrepreneurship may bring about interesting contributions to a balanced relationship among the economic, social and environmental dimensions [72,73]. For entrepreneurial and sustainable farms, institutions play a crucial role, namely the cooperatives [74] and the universities for technological transfer [75], as well as the rural policies [76,77]. Social entrepreneurship in rural regions [78] and social farming [79][80][81] are interesting perspectives for farming and rural sustainability.…”

Models, Processes, and Roles of Universities in Technology Transfer Management: A Systematic Review

“…Several technology transfer models exist in the literature, as discussed by (Bradley et al 2013;Arenas and González 2018). The foundational traditional model ( Figure 2) is used by Vac and Fitiu (2017), in which the acceptance of the technological knowledge is a function of the kind of protection and marketing activities carried out (Malik 2002). Waroonkun and Stewart (2008) also presented a model that suits international technology transfer in which patenting and licensing must follow socio-political norms.…”