"Making better use of publicly funded R&D is an important problem," states a Commission policy document urging better exploitation of research results. The Communication, adopted on 4 April 2007, argues that an average university in Europe generates far fewer inventions and patents compared with North American counterpart.
This is said to be largely due to "a less systematic and professional management of knowledge and intellectual property" in European universities. Other barriers include cultural differences between business and science communities, lack of incentives for them to work together as well as legal barriers hindering co-operation.
The document highlights the need to improve knowledge transfer between research institutions and industry in particular by creating the right conditions for successful knowledge transfer and by promoting an entrepreneurial mindset.
It proposes, in its annex, voluntary guidelines to help universities, research and technology organisations and other publicly funded R&D bodies to do so.
The guidelines highlight good practice regarding the management and transfer of knowledge and intellectual property and aim to help research institutions identify shared interests and mutually beneficial knowledge-transfer arrangements with industry.
The documents follow a public consultation (Spring 2006) on stakeholder views on the existing knowledge transfer systems in Europe and on the changes needed to facilitate academia-industry interactions.
A group of high-level industry and academic actors will be launched in 2007 to further reflect and develop these guidelines and to provide advice on other possible actions to promote knowledge transfer in Europe.
