Description

This final technical focuses on research commercialization and technology transfer in Africa, divided into two key sections: a scoping/landscaping study and a validation workshop. It highlights the increasing demand on universities and public research institutes since the 1990s to produce socially and economically impactful research and foster stronger collaboration with industry. This shift has been driven by the private sector’s move away from internal R&D toward partnerships with academia through public-private partnerships, spin-offs, and open innovation initiatives. In response, universities and research institutions have created new structures, such as technology transfer offices (TTOs) and intellectual property management offices (IPMOs), and introduced new management roles like Deputy Vice Chancellor (Research and Innovation). National policies and funding instruments now emphasize innovation, while intermediary organizations have emerged to strengthen academia-industry linkages. These developments underline a growing focus on connecting research outputs with real-world applications.