The transfer of knowledge between universities and industry has received considerable attention throughout the last 20 years. The study of knowledge and its relationship to commercial advantage and innovation is popular in management research. The majority of this research considers knowledge transfer at a society or company level, however, there is an absence of research that focuses at a project level and considers the day-today practices involved in transferring knowledge, back and forth, between universities and commercial organisations. This research focuses on this aspect of knowledge transfer by undertaking a range of theory-building activities to develop a new understanding of the practice of transferring knowledge in this context. Adopting an inductive methodological approach, aligned with a ‘social constructivist’ paradigm, the research develops a number of questions from the literature. The questions are then explored by reference to experienced participants from ‘real’ knowledge transfer projects, using participant enquiry methods. A number of practical frameworks are proposed. The appropriateness of these is further explored using participant interaction techniques – where research interventions are developed and applied in ‘live’ knowledge transfer projects. The results suggest that by raising participant’s awareness of the inherent properties of knowledge, the outcomes of knowledge transfer projects may be strengthened. By focussing on standardised frameworks for interaction and suggesting practical activities that can be carried out before and during knowledge transfer projects, a focus can be achieved on improving the outcomes of the projects respectively. The wider implication of this work could be in the development of policy interventions, practical management guidelines and knowledge transfer ‘best practice’. In addition, the practical tools and techniques developed could also form the basis for further evaluative research. This could be used to compare organisations’ competences and services, which could, in turn, advise the strategies of industrial organisations, universities and knowledge transfer intermediaries.

The increasing pace of technological change is creating significant disruptions in the marketplace. In these markets, successfully managing innovation has become a key competitive advantage. Global trends of low-cost manufacturing and environmental sustainability have mademanufacturing innovations increasingly important. Many alternative manufacturing solutions are developed in not-for-profit institutions such as universities and research centers. This has created a gap between the owners of new technologies and the potential beneficiary of the technology. Correctly asserting if an invention or technology has commercial potential is a challengingprospect.What methods can be used to evaluate the commercial potential of a new technology? Whatimportant considerations and delimitations must be made to provide a reliable value estimation?How should the commercial potential be communicated to stakeholders, financiers andcustomers? If there is commercial potential, how do you successfully commercialize thetechnology? These themes are explored in this study. The question of how to estimate the value of a ninvention is investigated in the first section. Using a case-study approach and looking at a new manufacturing technology in the solar cell market an attempt to estimate the value is made. The results show that the innovation value can be estimated using a quantitative approach where benefits and costs are estimated using publicly available data. This approach was found to work well for technologies that are sustaining the current manufacturing paradigm but struggled to provide an accurate estimation for newer technologies. The process was found to require a diverse set of skills and to preferably be made by a co-founder team with technical and industry knowledge. The second section focuses on how an invention can be successfully commercialized. By interviewing firms who had developed and sold manufacturing innovations and were growing quickly. They were found to have started their companies together with their customers and having had a close working relationship with them throughout the process. Furthermore, they were found to have founding teams who were close friends prior to starting the company. The firms also stressed approved patents and timing of financing as key factors to their success. As technology transfer between universities and large industrial firms become increasingly important the questions of how researchers and inventors can commercialize their technologies will attract much attention. This study provides clear guidelines on how to approach the processof finding and commercializing new technologies from the perspective of the inventor.