Transfer of health care technology in university-industry research collaboration environment

The traditional innovation research has focused on the diffusion process and adoption of new technologies. This paper deals with health care technology in the early innovation stages preceding targeted development and marketing. A model of early research processes in the biomedical field and determinants of technology transfer will be presented. The study material is eleven projects in the Competence Center Noninvasive Medical Measurements (NIMED), Linkoping University, which is a collaboration center where academic researchers cooperate with industry and clinical departments. Data collection was made through semi-structured interviews. A qualitative approach has been adopted for data analysis. Research initiatives of the investigated projects do in most cases originate in the academic knowledge base and earlier connections in industry and health care play an important role in the formation of cooperation constellation. A number of internal factors are perceived as positive to project advancement, such as stable economy, proximity to clinical departments, and positive feedback from collaboration partners. Significant negative factors are all related to changes in cooperation structure. Clusters of related projects seem to be beneficial to research work and is an evident external factor which has to be added in a new model of technology transfer.