Managing R&D and innovation projects: an integrated conceptual model for technology transfer

Abstract

Projects start with an idea, which is deployed into a set of actions to deliver expected or foreseen outcomes, and they should be carried out in a cohesive and unified context. In this paper, contributions are devised to integrate project management and technology transfer practices to drive the transformation of knowledge into innovation within the scope of research and development projects at universities and research laboratories or centers. These contributions are presented in the form of a conceptual model that includes three interrelated groups. The first group is focused on project ideas' definition and selection, the second group on project management, and the third group on knowledge and technology transfer, these groups are supported by improvement, innovation and project management guidelines and standards. To obtain insights to define the model, quantitative and qualitative methods have been used and the data was processed using content analysis and descriptive and inferential techniques meant to ensure the complementarity of the data to obtain a holistic understanding of the practices under analysis. The approach was exploratory and descriptive, but also analytical in the sense that it states the issues at stake to support project management and technology transfer.