The Evaluation of Policies for Knowledge Transfer: Some Emerging Issues

Governments in western countries are seeing Universities as the key actor to promote a transition to a knowledge-based economy that can help the future competitiveness challenges posed by new entrants in the global market. In this context, specific industrial policies are designed to promote a transfer of technology, and a more general transfer of knowledge from universities to firms, in order to favour innovation, that is the economic exploitation and commercialisation of new products and processes generated by inventions within universities. Although the use of these policies is rapidly expanding, the same cannot be said of the evaluation efforts made to understand the effects of the reforms promoted in western economies. This paper offers a contribution to the existing literature and highlights some key open issues on which future research can build in order to improve the knowledge on the effectiveness of reforms we are witnessing, in particular in the U.S. and in Europe.