The Technology Transfer Challenge

The sudden appearance and rapid spread of the coronavirus in the beginning of 2020 has caused the loss of life, immeasurable suffering and it already impacted the world economy and everyone’s personal life. But times of tremendous crises also spark human creativity and innovation behavior. The coronavirus pandemic will be most likely and hopefully soon resolved through technologies, e.g., a drug and, ultimately, a new vaccination, flanked by medical devices and the health system in general. Adequate technology transfer processes as the movement from knowledge, inventions, and innovative technologies from the lab into the private sector can contribute to the efficiency and speed of innovation. These processes are not linear and can be experienced as various interactions between actors and organizations of the science system with other social subsystems and citizens. In this edited volume, we provide insights on technology transfer that are relevant to scientists, technology transfer practitioners, and policymakers. The structure of the edited volume follows the seven dimensions identified in the state-of-the-art literature review by Battistella, De Toni, and Pillon (J Technol Transf 41: 1195–1234, 2016).