BTP—Best Transfer Practices. A tool for qualitative analysis of tech-transfer offices: A cross cultural analysis

Abstract

The objective of this article is to present a qualitative analysis tool which technology transfer offices (TTOs) can utilize to improve their efficiency and effectiveness. Such qualitative tool is one of the novelties presented. The other is information that advances understanding of the processes, procedures and structures required to transfer technology, as a set of best practices.

From December 2008 to September 2010 a variety of methodologies (document analysis, participative observation, interviews and surveys) generated data which led to development of a theoretical framework. The theoretical framework, called Master Plan for Technology Transfer (TT), is a reference schema for best practices. The Master Plan contains 271 rules (good practices) referring to 43 facilitators distributed in seven groups. The facilitators and rules were selected from a coding process based on grounded theory, where facilitators are the categories and rules are their properties. Based on the methodologies and development of the Master Plan, we constructed a tool called Best Transfer Practices (BTP) which is a qualitative tool to assess and study TTOs and their host R&D institutions. The collection of rules and facilitators are the soul of our BTP. It is our contribution to the knowledge of actual practices in TT.