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O-125Technology Transfer from Universities to IndustryOmid Ali Kharazmi, University of Stirling, UKUma Kumar, Carleton University, CanadaUniversity in regional innovation and social developmentUniversity technology transfer(Transfer of Technology from Iranian Universities to Industry: University Perspective)ABSTRACTThis is a study about transferring the technology from Iranian university to industry. Although concentration was placed oninventions, new hardware or software, in practice it was necessary to accept some departures from this ideal.Unlike developed countries the relation between university and industry in Iran is not so much. Most of the Iranian universitiesuse the model of western universities which seems to be not practical to solve the problems of industry. The connectionbetween university and industry is faded to some extent, because industry can’t satisfy all of their needs based on universitiespotential. In comparison with other countries the statistics shows that the volume of technology transfer in Iran is low and Iranianindustries are interested in absorbing their needed technology from foreign countries.The emphasis of the study is placed on discovering the existing technology transfer process, organizations involved and themajor decision taken during technology transfer from university to industry. In addition, The process of evaluating the technology,discovering the barriers of transfer, different ways of establishing contacts, benefits gained from university–industry collaborationand recommendation for promoting the current situation (for government, universities, industries and intermediaryorganizations)were considered.For reaching above purposes numbers of interviews were conducted. Interviews include both quantitative and qualitative questionsthat were conducted with 23 professors, 5 liaison officers, 3 intermediary organizations and one representative of ministry ofscience, research& technology. The overview is as follow:Results of the interviews revealed that in terms of establishing contacts companies were more proactive; mostly they approachedthe professors to initiate contacts. For professor’s expertise, reputation and friendly relation with industrial people help forestablishing contacts. Moreover we find that most of liaison officers had take reactive postures in terms of establishing contact.For professors, the level of satisfaction of the firm and for liaison officers, amount of financial returns for university are the mostimportant criteria for measuring the degree of success. Also most important benefits that gained were defined. In terms ofbarriers we found that lack of knowledge about industry relevant needs is the most important barrier within the university fromprofessor’s view and they said that within industry the most important barrier is a poor knowledge about university researchcapabilities. Moreover, number of interviews with intermediary organizations and representative of ministry of science researchand technology were conducted and they declared the general structures of their company and most important barriers.Most of the technologies which were transferred from university to industry were based on four processes. In the first processwhich is “professor center”, professors and industry contact with each other directly. In Iran about 52% of projects weretransferred by this method. The second process which name is “university-center”, the liaison offices are responsible for linkinguniversity and industry together and to show each of them the potentials and needs of the other one. Unfortunately in Iran thereis no clear definition for the task of these offices and due to this problem the process of their job is taking such a long time andalso it is quiet bureaucratic. These offices are not active, as is evident from the fact that only e 13% of transfers were conveyedby this method. Further these offices weren’t successful to facilitate the problems of intellectual property right which theprofessors are faced with.The third process is transferring projects through intermediary organizations. Intermediary organizations which were consideredin this study are: Saffron research consortium, science and technology parks and internship centers. Results of this studyshow that about 26% of projects were conducted by this mode. The fourth process is university research center; about 9% ofthe projects were conducted in this way. Research centers are frequently located on university campuses. In many of thesecenters, members of both the university and industry work together on researching ideas and developing inventions.In the last part of this study a number of recommendations for improving the effectiveness of technology transfer are given.These are mostly related to the promotion of government policy, university and industry policy, structure of university offices andintermediary organizations.This study is considered as a first attempt to identify the major mechanisms of technology transfer from universities to industryin Iran. Recommendations for this research would be useful for the countries in the same stage of development.Keywords: University, Industry, Technology Transfer, IranMadrid, October 20, 21 & 22 - 2010177