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For Karl Tombre, universities need broad innovation strategies to tackle the immense challenges of this century, but this means looking beyond the technology transfer office and moving past outdated concepts.

We need to go beyond an outdated, simplistic view of innovation as merely a matter of scaling up basic research results to pre-industrial prototypes.

In the EUA Innovation Agenda 2026, the European University Association defines innovation as “a process of knowledge co-creation and transfer […] based on open and systematic interactions between academia, government, the private sector, and the general public and drawing on the entire research and development chain […] on the sphere of education and training as well as on capabilities and resources for innovation uptake…”

This broad and systemic view of innovation is essential, and we must make sure that universities themselves, as well as policy makers and economic actors, are fully aware of it.

As ideal ‘honest brokers’, universities play a major role in innovation processes, in all their aspects. Moreover, they do so without separating research activities from educational activities, as these are two faces of the same innovation coin.

But for that, universities themselves need to go past outdated organisational schemes where innovation is largely synonymous with setting up a technology transfer office (TTO). Universities undoubtedly need to have professional methods to deal with the transfer of research results. Having staff and processes in place - to exploit scientific results, to answer needs expressed by economic stakeholders and connect them with scientists, and to valorise the university’s intellectual property – is crucial.

However, it would be an error to focus the university’s innovation strategy solely around the TTO. A university has to define its innovation strategy in a much broader way.

The back and forth of innovation

As underlined by Jason Crawford, the impact of science on invention is long-term, and is often impossible to foresee. Although there are times when scientific work pursues clearly identified applications, much of it is driven purely by scientific curiosity. Yet even when little thought is given to applications, such research often leads to significant, tangible breakthroughs.

Crawford also draws our attention to the fact that in several cases, the invention came first, and the understanding of the science behind it came at a later stage. He also mentions those researchers who are able to work both ways, from scientific curiosity to innovative applications, and from solutions to concrete problems to scientific exploration. Here, he cites some interesting examples, such as how Louis Pasteur, a pioneer of microbiology, achieved great scientific discoveries from projects with purely practical goals.

Therefore, universities not only need to have solid mechanisms for the valorisation of research, but an overarching culture that enables them to navigate back and forth between science and innovation. This cannot only be the task of specialised technology transfer offices, but has to be deeply rooted in the ‘soft skills’ of our students, doctoral candidates and faculty members.

Innovation cooperation

In a paper entitled ‘Beyond technology transfer’, Nimisha Pandey et al. look at the stakes for successful innovation to advance sustainable development in developing countries. Looking at three major fields, namely agriculture, health, and climate and energy, they suggest that we should rather explore innovation cooperation, rather than merely look at technology transfer.

This is a promising proposal for the field of agriculture, which involves a large number of stakeholders, with a crucial role played by the public sector and by global and local institutions. However, similar considerations can be made in the health sector, where public agencies and governments remain crucial, and partnerships between various actors must be fully mobilised. Moreover, researchers have found that the same is also true for energy and climate issues.

Beyond TRLs

Another crucial point is the necessity to go far beyond technology readiness in how we frame innovation.

This is a century of major challenges, such as mastering the transition of our societies to a fully digital world without losing the essence of humanity along the way, or the immense impact of climate change and biodiversity loss. And although disruptive ‘deep tech’ innovations that bring radically new solutions to these challenges are more than welcome, mankind will need much more than this.

We will have to combine technological innovation with new ways of organising our societies, new economic models, new skills and competencies, and much more. Propositions on how to achieve this include Societal Embeddedness Levels (SEL), which aim to answer questions such as:

  • Is society ready for this?
  • What is the legal and regulatory situation?
  • And what about funding and the business case?

Other innovation players have put forward similar approaches, such as the Innovation Fund Denmark, which proposes the assessment of Societal Readiness Levels.

All things considered, there are numerous strong arguments for universities to develop a strategy to make the most of their role in innovation. This should encompass the whole set of disciplines - not only technological fields, a strong focus on interdisciplinary approaches, permanent dialogue between technological advances, societal issues, and all relevant stakeholders. And last, but not least, a permanent dialogue between innovation processes and skills education is necessary for these processes to be of any practical use.

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