Technology transfer for social benefit: Ten principles to guide the process

Abstract

The transfer of knowledge and inventions from universities to society has a twofold objective: the business community should be advanced by innovations, and society should benefit. Economic success is relatively easy to measure (e.g., increased sales), but social benefits are not. Thus, we presented a matrix of 10 principles for the assessment of the social value of technologies. With this understanding, technology transfer processes can be designed to lead to products and services that are more valuable in a holistic sense. The application of these 10 principles is explained by considering the examples of three distinct technologies and markets: smartphones, genetically modified agricultural crops, and artificial intelligence.