University Technology Enterprise Network in Portugal: a bottom-up approach to improve regional innovation ecosystems

Abstract

In the new paradigm of Open Innovation (OI), traditional cooperative research agreements or sponsored research are no longer effective enough to meet the needs of the system and the market. Today, any Innovation Ecosystem has a myriad of players, such as: big and small companies, startups, R&D institutions, brokers, and other intermediaries. The UTEN (University Technology Enterprise Network) Program, launched in March 2007 by The University of Texas at Austin’s IC2 Institute to accelerate the development of a sustainable, globally competitive, professional technology transfer (TT) and commercialization network, was founded with the propose of improving the Portuguese international competitiveness in university–based science/technology commercialization. We argue that initiatives taken place in the project have gotten UTEN network presently run in OI fostered mostly by the TT Offices and their own networks and officers. This paper shows the actions taken to develop UTEN and improve the Portuguese Innovation Ecosystem. The data we offer in support of our argument is a collection of implementation that started with 14 Portuguese Universities and select international partners in a five-year program. Our indicators show that UTEN has leveraged this growth by stimulating new competencies in international technology transfer and commercialization, and by facilitating industry access to the world’s leading markets. This bottom-up approach contributed to building the necessary relationships between all actors within this innovation ecosystem by providing the necessary knowledge to play their roles. This case is evidence that critical mass and regional public policies are very important in the development of “high-tech” regions.