?
Technology transfer and commercialisation by universities and PRIs: benchmarking OECD country policy approaches
The article highlights the challenges of benchmarking the science, technology and innovation (STI) policy mix between countries. A benchmarking concept is developed to compare policies across countries, which takes account of country structural features, the way policies are embedded in the national STI policy context and the country’s development stage. We focus on policies aiming at fostering technology transfer and commercialisation of public research in selected OECD and emerging economies, drawing on the recent EC/OECD STI Outlook Policy database. Countries combine instruments across different policy domains, including business innovation, entrepreneurship and industrial policies in accordance with their public research orientation and business absorptive capacities. Policy interventions focus on upstream and/or downstream stages of knowledge transfer as attention is given to adjusting the supply of public research to social and economic needs or to encouraging business demand for public research results. Transfer and commercialisation of public research is increasingly integrated into STI policy governance. Policy sets for knowledge transfer tend to be denser in more advanced STI systems.