ABSTRACT

This work investigates the obstacles that arise in the collaboration between Public Research Institutes (PRIs) and Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), when they are involved in Big Science projects. PRIs are valuable scientific partners for industry and even more for SMEs. However, sometimes the collaboration with PRI is not as profitable as expected and the existing literature often focuses on university as scientific partners, without studing the peculiarities of PRIs. Specifically, the setting of our study is the collaboration between the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA) and three SMEs, all involved in the ITER project (i.e., the main Big Science project in the field of nuclear fusion reaction). Thanks to an explorative multiple case study, our work enriches the evidence about the technology transfer practices by considering the entire process of collaboration (i.e., pre-transfer, development, post-transfer) and it suggests that the obstacles and the consequent solutions should be analysed according to the different phases of the process itself. Moreover, from a practical point of view, we illustrate how to shape some managerial levers in order to overcome the obstacles in the different phases of the collaboration process, for example adopting tools or practices such as roadmaps or exchange of personnel.

摘要

这项工作调查了公共科研机构（PRI）和中小型企业（SME）参与大型科学项目时在其合作中遇到的障碍。PRI是行业乃至中小企业的宝贵科学合作伙伴。但是，有时与PRI的合作并不如预期的那样有利，并且现有文献经常将大学作为科学合作伙伴，而没有研究PRI的特殊性。具体来说，我们的研究背景是意大利国家新技术，能源与可持续经济发展国家机构（ENEA）与三家中小型企业之间的合作，这三家中小型企业都参与了ITER项目（即核领域的主要大型科学项目）融合反应）。多亏了探索性的多案例研究，我们的工作通过考虑整个协作过程（即，转移前，开发，转移后），丰富了有关技术转让实践的证据，并建议应根据专利申请的不同阶段分析障碍和相应的解决方案。处理本身。此外，从实践的角度来看，我们将说明如何塑造一些管理杠杆，以克服协作过程不同阶段的障碍，例如采用路线图或人员调换之类的工具或做法。