FOCUS - Technical Brief Number 34: Tracking Evidence of Knowledge Use Through Knowledge Translation, Technology Transfer, and Commercial Transactions

This FOCUS Technical Brief extends FOCUS No. 26, which considered the processes of knowledge translation (KT) and technology transfer (TT) in technological innovation. Here, we explain that both KT and TT contribute to accomplishing yet a third process—commercial transaction—which is the actual transformation of knowledge embodied in products and services into beneficial socioeconomic impacts. Planning, managing, and documenting the progression of knowledge use through the technological innovation pipeline culminates in an exchange of utility between the producers and consumers of knowledge through this market mechanism.