Report Sheds Light on Role of Tech Transfer, Commercialization in ED

A new report prepared for the U.S. Economic Development Administration aims to provide public officials, development practitioners and researchers with a greater understanding of the relationship between the creation and commercialization of technologies and regional economic development. Technology Transfer and Commercialization: Their Role in Economic Development begins by outlining the causes and effects of the restructuring of the U.S. economy that necessitates technology-focused development strategies. For readers without a technology background, the report defines and describes a typology of technology transfer and commercialization activities.

Technology Transfer and Commercialization also seeks to aid a realistic assessment of the potential for technology-based development in various regions across the U.S. Where does technology development and commercialization activity take place in the U.S. and why? Are rural areas and smaller metro areas as likely to be sites for technology development and commercialization activity as larger metro areas? How important is the presence of public research and development (R&D) – carried out at universities, nonprofit research institutes and federal laboratories – for technology-based development? In answering these questions, the report examines and publishes data for all 318 U.S. metropolitan areas, carrying out an extensive analysis.

Almost all innovation takes place in metropolitan areas, according to the report. Less than one-fifth of metro areas, however, specialize in patenting — those having a share of U.S. metro patents greater than the share of metro jobs. The data show large metro areas, or those having more than 1 million jobs, are far more likely to specialize in patenting than smaller areas. Two-thirds of large metro areas specialize in patenting, compared to 14 percent of smaller metro areas. Larger metro areas have an advantage in the innovation process due to their greater specialization and diversity, the report states.

Other key findings include:

• Public R&D located in large metro areas is far more likely to lead to local corporate technology development than for public R&D in rural and small metro areas.
• Innovation activity, as measured by patents and industrial R&D, correlates with higher annual wages, but does not correlate with growth in total regional jobs and income.
• If technology development is a centripetal phenomenon, drawn towards relatively few large centers, commercialization is centrifugal in nature, taking place across the global landscape according to the competitive advantages of local areas for carrying out particular production, distribution, management, and technical functions.

While many regions outside of major metropolitan areas may have difficulty competing in realms of technology development and retaining the jobs created by commercialization, they possess significant opportunities to specialize in certain aspects of commercialization of technologies created elsewhere, the report concludes.

The report ends by outlining models and options for regional technology transfer and commercialization programs and discussing ways in which existing development organizations can fruitfully interact with such programs. For this analysis, the report reviewed 400 programs and carried out 21 case studies of interactions between development organizations and technology transfer and commercialization programs. Observations are provided regarding the design of such programs in light of the realities of the geography of innovation.

The Digest thanks Andrew Reamer of Reamer & Associates for his help with this story. Technology Transfer and Commercialization is available for download at: http://www.tech-links.net/ttc.pdf