Towards a governance of technology transfer: fostering impact through goals, people, and resources

This study investigates the governance mechanisms that universities and Public Research Organizations (PROs) can implement to foster the impact of technology transfer initiatives. While maximizing the technology transfer impact has been widely explored both in research and practice, our understanding of the role that governance can play in this process remains limited. This paper addresses this gap by identifying specific governance mechanisms that universities and PROs can implement to achieve greater impact in their technology transfer initiatives. We performed a qualitative analysis of technology transfer professionals in the Italian context. We relied on interviews and secondary sources accessed through Netval, the National Association for Technology Transfer. Our findings reveal three critical governance levels: (i) the political level, which leverages goals as key elements, (ii) the relational level, which leverages people, and (iii) the technological level, which leverages resources. Drawing on goal setting, stakeholder, and resource dependence theories, we create a governance framework to maximize technology transfer impact. This study contributes to the governance literature by integrating and extending these three theories in the technology transfer domain, illustrating their interplay across political, relational, and technological governance levels. For each, we present a series of formal and informal governance mechanisms that universities and PROs should adopt to strengthen the societal and economic impact of their technology transfer initiatives.