Research on academic engagement and technology transfer or commercialization offers important insights into the relationship between characteristics, activities and abilities of individual academic researchers, with outcomes such as successful technology transfer and commercialization. In particular, the activity of boundary spanning proves central in the successful transfer and commercialization of university developed technologies. However, the process by which academic researchers become boundary spanners remains relatively unexplored. This investigation serves to shed new light on the matter. We draw on an in-depth case study of a large European publicly funded initiative, directed to stimulate industry adoption of a university-developed technology across Europe. Our rich dataset is a result of following the project from start to finish, triangulating from multiple sources over a three-year period. Our analyses offer novel insight into the role of perspective taking as a mechanism both enabling academics to understand knowledge boundaries faced during engagement activities and a critical input to developing and improving boundary spanning abilities. Our findings offer important implications for research on academic engagement and technology commercialization.

对学术参与和技术转让或商业化的研究为了解个别学术研究人员的特征、活动和能力之间的关系提供了重要的见解，并取得了成功的技术转让和商业化等成果。特别是，跨越边界的活动被证明是大学开发技术成功转移和商业化的核心。然而，学术研究人员成为边界跨越者的过程仍然相对未被探索。这项调查有助于为此事提供新的线索。我们对一项大型欧洲公共资助计划进行了深入的案例研究，该计划旨在刺激整个欧洲的大学开发技术的行业采用。我们丰富的数据集是从头到尾跟踪项目的结果，在三年期间从多个来源进行三角测量。我们的分析为视角作为一种机制的作用提供了新颖的见解，既使学者能够理解参与活动中面临的知识边界，又是发展和提高跨越边界能力的关键投入。我们的发现对学术参与和技术商业化的研究具有重要意义。