Knowledge Management and Value Creation in Public Research Centers: The Development of a Diagnosis Tool

José Luis Solleiro, Rosario Castañón, Alejandra Herrera, Alma González, Flor Escalante

Centro de Ciencias Aplicadas y Desarrollo Tecnológico, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, México

Abstract--The R&D Centers (RDC) are organizations where knowledge and innovation management has a high priority for increasing efficiency of knowledge and creativity processes and their transformation in intellectual assets. At present, these capacities are essential for competitiveness environment where customers demand new and better products and services. In LATAM countries, the public policies stimulate researchers according to a traditional schema mainly based on number of publications and graduated students. So, knowledge management and value creation are not common RDC evaluation. According to this premise, our R&D team has developed an evaluation tool that has been applied to fourteen Mexican RDC, ten Brazilians and ten Chileans. The RDC selected have an acceptable relationship with productive sector and important contributions to science and technology in the region. The objective of the research was the evaluation of knowledge and value creation management (KVCM) in public RDC and the identification of social and economic impact of these elements. Our findings present best practices of KVCM around the results of nine strategic areas. This project is sponsored by IDRC and FLACSO Mexico.

I. INTRODUCTION

This paper is the first result of the project “Knowledge management and value creation in public research centers”, within the Research Program on Knowledge Economy 1 sponsored by IDRC in Latin America.

In order to understand the origin of “knowledge demand”, it is essential to mention that the new conditions of international competition have induced deep changes in company management. The definition of active technology strategies at firm level is essential today to keep or maintain competitiveness levels. For this reason in industrialized countries, companies have undertaken several initiatives focused onto the improvement of the access to frontier knowledge that, integrated as technological packages, allow them to develop new products, processes and equipment, as well as organizational innovations supporting such strategy. In the past thirty years, among said business initiatives, a new type of approach of the companies to the research and development (R&D) centers has become especially relevant, through which the access to highly qualified human resources and the maintenance of a window open onto science and technology are sought [8] [2].

These motivations have been sufficiently powerful to encourage the development of the most diverse collaboration

1 This research program is coordinated by the Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO) and sponsored by the International Development Research Center (IDRC) of Canada.

modes between the companies and the research centers, from the simple rendering of technical services and consulting to the coordination of complex collaboration programs in basic research and the development of special capacities to compete in the long run. This fact is clearly illustrated in the case of the United States of America, where in 1980 the Patent Law was amended to allow universities and public research centers to hold patents and in this way establish a solid legal platform to facilitate technology licensing to the private sector. Thus, in the 80’s, said associations gained legitimacy and defined many policies and initiatives at federal level to encourage said interactions [7] [6].

The developing countries have not remained outside this new phenomenon. In most of the countries, spontaneously or in a planned way, collaboration cases of this type have been registered. However, it can be said that, in said countries, the cooperation is just beginning. There is no evidence that ambitious models of long-term scientific and technological collaboration have successfully spread. This is especially true in Latin America where most R&D centers have defined the goals of generating income derived from the marketing of their knowledge and contributing to the effective solution of social problems, but the success stories are very uncommon, basically because of the lack of institutional experience, of orientation to the solution of the specific problems of a client or user of said knowledge and its appropriate translation into intellectual assets are expressed as enormous obstacles to fulfill this goal.

One of these obstacles relates to the relative importance of the performance incentives, promotions and the salary earned by the researchers, are based on traditional scientific results that are evaluated by academic peers that do not relate to the industrial, social and market context in which this research occurs. Thus, with regard to the intellectual capital management for value generation, such incentives become counterproductive. The described situation reflects the fact that both the R&D centers that have been created with a technological assistance vocation as well as the universities concentrate on conventional scientific activities and do not focus on value generation for industry and society.

It is now clear that R&D centers should be conceived as knowledge-based organizations in which knowledge management and innovation are essential to make the learning and creation processes more efficient and flexible as well as the translation of knowledge into intellectual assets generating economic and social benefits. Moreover, said management capacities have become critical in the current competitive environment in which skill and dynamism

necessary to offer quick response and solutions to users and clients are requested [5] [1].

We have developed an evaluation tool that has been pilot tested in thirteen R&D centers in Mexico, nine Chilean centers and eleven Brazilian centers, primarily to test the hypothesis of the project in the sense that “ Latin-American R&D centers need to adopt formal practices of knowledge management because they usually lack sufficient internal capacity to recognize their value generating activities; to design and put into practice effective mechanisms that allow the objective evaluation of derived economic and social benefits; and to transcend a traditional evaluation based on the number of publications and the number of graduated students, to give way to socio- economic impact indicators corresponding to the new research context in the region”2.

The R&D center selection to integrate the sample was made according to the criterion of successful experience in the link with the productive environment and, obviously, the acknowledged quality of the scientific and technological results 3 . Local specialists with ample experience were involved in order to obtain references regarding which centers should be integrated in the sample in the three countries; moreover, a verification of the scientific and technological indicators was made prior to the selection of a given center.

The objective has been to evaluate the knowledge management process in R&D centers in order to determine their capacity to derive value and social economic impact from their scientific and technological activities.

II. KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND VALUE CREATION

Recently, the concept of intellectual capital has gained

acceptance. Said concept is clearly related to the evaluation process of the knowledge needed by research institutions. The intellectual capital of a determined organization is the sum of its “ideas, inventions, technologies, general knowledge, computer programs, designs, data treatment techniques, processes, creativity and publications. The intellectual capital can be understood simply as knowledge that can be converted into profits” [11]. The intellectual capital management refers to the development of techniques facilitating the planning and performance of activities focused to optimizing the processes of value generation and extraction from the knowledge of an organization.

Knowledge management has tactical and operative perspectives with regard to the planning, implementation,

2 From the original research document 3 As a result of the consultation with specialists it was decided to take into account private universities and private centers in Brazil and Chile. The specialists determined that the research development in these countries was different from Mexico and not considering private centers would be ignoring relevant results. In the case of Mexico, there begin to exist interesting initiatives in private institutions but it is in the public sector where most results and experiences occur

operation and supervision of all the activities and programs related to the knowledge required for the creation and management of intellectual capital. Thus, the intellectual capital management focuses onto the creation and administration of intellectual assets, from a strategic and directive perspective [12]. As can be observed, knowledge management and intellectual capital management are complementary processes, the first “centers on the organization and management of the creative organizations, making them more efficient and flexible. Frequently it does not deal with the business consequences of the innovation, except through implication. The strategies come from the political processes generated within the company” [3]. The intellectual capital management centers on the extraction of knowledge value requiring, in first place, that the institutions align internally their processes of knowledge generation with their vision and strategy to impact the social economic environment in which they operate.

Value creation relates primarily to activities concerning the human capital of the organization focused to the creation of new competences through research, training and knowledge acquisition. The following list will help recognize elements that are sources of value for the intellectual assets of the institutions 4 . The assumption of the importance of generating these types of elements is essential to increase the exchange value of knowledge and to strengthen the institutional negotiation capacities [10]. • Patents and other intellectual property titles. • Proprietary technical information (laboratory notes,

research logs, non published manuals, project plans, management presentation, published information compendiums) relevant to the technology to be marketed.

• People (Selected individuals that can accompany the technology, temporally or definitively).

• R&D equipment and materials (models, research prototypes, test samples).

• Special installations (pilot plant, safety installations, etc). • Software. • Clients (transfer of trade accounts or client lists). • Suppliers of specialized inputs. • External agreements (with sources of R&D resources,

third parties commitments, etc.). • External licenses (operation permits, government

approvals, and other licenses essential for the freedom of commercial operation).

• Mechanisms to fight intellectual property infringers. • R&D and consulting services. • Support services to fulfill regulations. • Representations and guarantees.

4 The intellectual assets are knowledge that has been coded and becomes part of the equity of the organization. The marketable intellectual assets are the assets that can enter the technological market because of their capacity to generate economic profits to an external user. There are two classes of marketable intellectual assets: the ones that are legally protected and the ones that are not legally protected [11].

III. THE EVALUATION INSTRUMENT

From this conceptual framework, a questionnaire was designed to collect data in the R&D centers selected for the diagnosis stage. The structure of the diagnosis tool includes the themes included in the evaluation and diagnosis questionnaire proposed by [9] designed to generate a qualitative evaluation of knowledge management and value generation in public research centers. The main contributions of the redesign of the tool were developed based on the following mechanisms: a) Removal of redundant and duplicated questions. b) Incorporation of alternative responses and a metrics

based on Likert scales, in order to process the questionnaires according to a numerical index.

c) Edition of questions to clarify their purpose. d) Design of frequency scales. e) Design of scales to evaluate the intensity and investment

associated to specific activities of knowledge management.

f) Design of the evaluation method per answer, question and topic.

g) Determination of the general evaluation scale. h) Development of a set of generic recommendations for

each diagnosis scenario, in order to generate feedback to the participating centers.

The final version of the tool was adjusted to a spreadsheet

format having the following characteristics: a) It contains up to 15 questionnaires to be captured per

each R&D center, permitting several points of views of the personnel of the center.

b) Score sheet on which the grade defined by each answer and question alternative was assigned.

c) Summary sheet with the general evaluation of the R&D center, and the detailed evaluation per section or topic, per question and per interviewed person.

Each question contained in the questionnaire was

elaborated according to the corresponding topic, the purpose of its inclusion and the evaluation method of the expected answers. Thus, the following types of questions were included: 1. Open questions, in which the user can answer freely.

2. Scale questions containing values from 0 to 10, 1 to 10 or 1 to 100

3. Multiple option questions with different answer alternatives where more than one answer can be given.

4. Multiple option questions in which only one answer can be given.

5. Frequency questions with time of use or application alternatives.

6. Bi-dimensional questions in which multiple alternatives are combined with frequency scales.

Considering the variety of practices and the number of

applications of the questionnaire by R&D centers and the number of R&D centers to study, the following variables were included: a) All the questions with multiple alternatives contain an

option “Other(s)” to include any answers not considered in the option list, as well as space to describe other options.

b) All the questions contain the option “I don’t know”. c) All the questions related to frequency scales, in which an

alternative different from “I don’t know” is chosen, include the option “I don’t know the frequency”.

Table 1 contains the nine main topics of the designed

questionnaire, comprising knowledge management and value generation.

TABLE 1. MAIN TOPICS OF THE QUESTIONNAIRE Id Topic I. Knowledge management. II. Identification of intellectual assets. III. Project management. IV. Knowledge mapping and competitive intelligence. V. Service portfolio. VI. Intellectual property (IP) management. VII. Results transfer. VIII. Staff evaluation and motivation. IX. Business development and client capital formation.

IV. EVALUATION METHOD

All the possible answers contained in the questionnaire

have a particular weight within the evaluation process. Table 2 shows the evaluation corresponding to the nine general topics comprising the questionnaire.

TABLE 2. EVALUATION OF GENERAL TOPICS

Id Average score obtained Good practice score Value obtained per section Equally distributed value Total computing I 24 11.11 II 140 11.11 III 130 11.11 IV 61 11.11 V 14 11.11 VI 82 11.11 VII 62 11.11 VIII 47 11.11 IX 129 11.11 Total 689 100.00

The average score obtained is equivalent to the average of the applied questionnaires. Said values are calculated automatically when the answers are captured. The good practice score contains the maximum total score that is possible for each section, and thus no R&D center will not be above a value defined in this column for each topic. The maximum value that can be reached in the application of each questionnaire is 689 points.

The value obtained per section corresponds to the percentage obtained of the score corresponding to the best possible practice (ideal theoretical performance), which is obtained dividing the average score by the good practice score. As can be seen, each one of sections has a particular score fluctuating between 14 and 140 points; said score representing a grade and not the importance of the topic or section within the whole knowledge management and value generation. For this purpose, in order to balance the weight of all the sections, it was determined to normalize the nine topics contained in the questionnaire with a value of 100 points. This value is equally distributed upon applying the factor of 11.11.

Finally, the total computing is explained under the following logic: a) The average total score is computed as the average of

this column in all the sections. b) the total score of the best possible practice is the sum of

all the values of this column c) The total value obtained per section is calculated as the

percentage of the average total score obtained divided by the total score of the best possible practice.

d) The total value of the balance factor per section is the sum of all the factors of this column (all are equal to 11.11).

e) The total value obtained from the total line is the sum of the values of this column.

Types of Questions in the Questionnaire

The evaluation scale is defined by the type of questions and the way they can be answered. To describe the question evaluation method, the various defined types are taken into account, as can be observed in Table 3.

TABLE 3. CRITERIA FOR QUESTIONS EVALUATION

Question type Evaluation scale (points) Evaluation criteria

Open questions

0-1 Each particular practice is considered as necessary for the R&D center that answers it

Scale questions

0-10 It is a scale of perception, satisfaction or budget assignment

Multiple option questions with different answer alternatives where more than one answer can be given

0-1, wherein the values of all the alternatives are added

The combination of alternatives generates a better practice than the isolated application of only one

Multiple option questions in which only one answer can be given.

From 0 the value of each next alternative is increased by 1 point

Each alternative represents a more advanced evolution level than the previous alternative within the same question

Frequency questions with time of use or application alternatives, and bi-dimensional questions in which multiple alternatives are combined with frequency scales.

0 if it is never applied or used, 1 if it is applied and its frequency is unknown, 2 if it is applied at the lowest frequency level, 3 if it is applied at a medium frequency level, 4 if it is applied at a high frequency level

The frequency is determined by the type of practice to which the question is related. If it is possible to choose several alternatives, then the value is equivalent to the sum of the values of all the selected alternative combinations- frequency

Bi-dimensional questions in which multiple alternatives are combined with entities.

0-1 The total value of the question is equivalent to the sum of all the selected alternatives.

All values obtained are accumulated to calculate the

values presented in the section corresponding to the general evaluation and section evaluation.

IV. RESULTS OF THE APPLICATION OF THE TOOL TO 33 R&D CENTERS

As mentioned, the tool has been applied to thirteen

Mexican centers, nine Chilean centers and eleven Brazilian centers that have been successful, not only in the generation of knowledge, but also in the generation of income from its transfer. Fig. 1 illustrates clearly the sizes of the questionnaire and the gap separating the centers from the best possible practice.

Fig.1 Summary of the Performance of the R&D Selected Compared to the Best Practice

The line indicating the average evaluation corresponds to the value obtained from the score of the 33 centers analyzed. The good practices found refer to the best evaluations found within the group of centers; i. e., each item has a practice leader that is not necessarily the group or country leader in this evaluation. Finally, the Centro de Investigación en Materiales Avanzados (CIMAV) (Advanced Materials Research Center) is presented as an example to place it with regard to the average and the good practices found.

As far as the discussion of said results is concerned, hereinafter the main discoveries and lessons resulting from the pilot application of the diagnosis tool in the research centers are presented. The information is shown as an aggregate, although specifications are made with regard to some particular situations of interest. A. Knowledge Management.

With regard to Knowledge Management it is common that most people working in the centers know the concept generically, but do not know what its application in the center and in the activity is.

Some centers are working in the development of Knowledge Management models or practices, some centers even having a person in charge of this matter. Other centers consider that they conduct this activity appropriately through the documentation conducted within their quality system.

However, in most of the centers, there is little communication of the obtained or generated knowledge. Generally, the areas are very poorly linked, even from the works of the various researchers. In the centers identified for

best practices in this aspect, it can be observed that the conduct presentation activities of their successful projects (normally on a yearly basis) and some people are interested in promoting events of “Lessons learned from non successful cases” (even though much resistance has to be faced). Many centers carry out the measurement of client satisfaction but, however, do not document the analysis of said results and thus this information is centralized in only a couple of people.

All the centers have a website and most of them use the intranet. It is doubtless a valuable effort, but it seems that said mechanisms are under-utilized. The same occurs with the use of other information technologies (platforms such as ERP, CRM, etc). These platforms have improved the development of the institution (knowledge management, project administration, etc) but there is a need to learn more about them to use them in new applications that socialize knowledge relevant for all the researchers. B. Identification of intellectual assets

This is one of the least developed areas because, generally, centers do not conduct a structured and systematic management. The term “intellectual asset” is nearly unknown by most of the personnel (independently of the work area). In this sense, the persons most familiar with the term are the administrators of the financial resources of the center and the higher level managers.

Although before there was a lack of acknowledgment of the possible economic value of knowledge, currently the personnel of the research centers know that the most valuable element within the organization is its people and the

knowledge they have and generate. Management has widely spread this notion. However, generally, the way to evaluate said intellectual assets is not known.

At organizational level, the intellectual assets are not accounted in their financial statements. The people knowing it is important to do it consider that they cannot perform it because the patents they hold have not been licensed and thus have not been appraised. In this sense it can be observed that the concept of intellectual asset, when known, is related only to patents.

It has been identified that there is no culture as yet to map the personnel competences and translate them into an inventory of knowledge with commercial potential. Moreover, with regard to the appraisal of said knowledge for the determination of its project and service prices, traditional parameters are still used, such as the cost of man hour (based on the payroll of the work team), the cost of materials and in some cases the expenses for the use of the infrastructure. C. Project management.

The centers have consolidated project management practices and have introduced systems to carry out follow up and control. The great advantage of this type of programs is that besides being a support for the handling of projects, it facilitates the knowledge of the project status and the issuance of indicators and reports for planning purposes as well as result evaluation.

The main problems in project administration are related to a lack of consideration of the market information for the integration of proposals and to the fact that the main sources of ideas are still the researchers themselves. However, it has been identified that some centers have switched to the extreme philosophy of “only initiating a project if it has a client” and others have adopted the practice of constructing market maps to plan possible applications of their knowledge and to define niches in which they can exploit the value of their knowledge. This has had an influence on the reorganization of the center structure D. Knowledge Mapping and Competitive Intelligence

This is another area in which management capacities are limited; on the one hand because in most of the centers this activity and its relevance are unknown. For this reason the preferred actualization mechanisms are those of academic nature.

It is common that several areas of the organization seek repeatedly the same information and it is also common that there is no knowledge mapping, and thus, as a result, there are cases in which different areas are developing proposals or even projects of the same topics.

There are some centers that already have a person responsible for this activity, however they are in the minority and present some limitations or problems: • They depend on a specific area, and thus their priority is

to report results to a particular area and not to the rest of the organization.

• Their activity has not been disseminated and thus the rest of the organization does not know well what they do or how they can get support for them.

• Generally they do not know the existence of computer programs for mining data.

• They do not have budgets for data base search or to acquire tools for the handling and storage of the information.

• They focus on technical information and not on marketing information. The most advanced centers are beginning to conduct market studies but it is a field they are just starting to learn. In this sense, they require personnel with professional studies in the market areas(few centers have them and those are nearly always technological development centers).

E. Service portfolio.

The centers have well structured service portfolios and some of them have started to review if said services are profitable. This information is used in order to determine if some services have to be kept in the portfolio or withdrawn, because it is not considered appropriate to subsidize them.

Generally, high value added services are prioritized. The practice to study the market so that the services correspond to the clients’ need has not been consolidated and the centers are generally offering a good reaction capacity to concrete requests. This is without doubt the most common practice in university, sector and scientific research centers. F. Intellectual property (IP) management.

Intellectual property is constantly getting more attention, even though hardly in the mode of invention protection through patents. The Organismos Nacionales de Ciencia y Tecnología (ONCYTs) (National Organisms of Science and Technology) have played an important part to turn the patents into performance indicator for research assessment. However, few centers have been reiteratively successful in the transfer of patented technologies. Moreover there are no explicit policies to handle confidential information, because the practice of using confidentiality agreements as a protection method has started spreading.

Most of the centers have a legal area that besides being responsible for the formalization of legal instruments (contracts, agreements, etc) conducts the activities related to the formal protection of intellectual capital. Moreover, legal specialists in specific topics or procedures are hired, although it is complicated that the researchers work with the legal department because the lawyer need to have much sensitivity and openness to work with them, win their confidence and know how to transmit the benefit of interaction.

The intellectual property management is totally related to the formal protection (patents, utility models, copyrights and trademarks, etc) and does not take into account (at least at conceptual level) all of the activities related to intellectual property that are very useful for an organization such as inventive incentive, obtaining of relevant technical

information, etc. In other words, although some of these activities are conducted, there is no awareness that they could strengthen Intellectual Property position. G. Results Transfer

Generally, the centers are aware of the methods to conduct the licensing of research results and to commercialize technologies. However, the success stories are still scarce because of the lack of experience of the researchers to develop a more attractive technological offer that meets the requirements of the industry.

The centers (mainly the technological development centers) are beginning to create multidisciplinary teams to carry out the activities related to result transfer.

As is occurring in the IP protection, the institutional lawyers are not very accustomed to this type of organizations and do not know its dynamics. Occasionally, this causes obstacles or makes contract processing difficult. The centers developing legal instruments corresponding to the industrial times are nearly always the technological development centers. In the case of centers in which the legal department corresponds to another institution accommodating the center (such as the universities), the situation is very complex because said departments deal with different types of procedures, mainly academic type agreements, and thus the lack of knowledge of the topic together with the work load make the formalization of legal instruments longer and more complex.

Regarding this point, multidisciplinary work is important in which, besides researchers and lawyers, market focused people and financially trained specialists take part. H. Staff evaluation and motivation.

It is still a critical problem although the evaluation mechanisms depend on the type of research center. In scientific, university and some sectorial centers, the evaluation methods are still based on traditional indicators (publications and human resources formation); on the contrary, in the technological development and some sectorial centers, the focus is related to the marketing of services, to a lesser extent to publications and to an even lesser extent to the formation of human resources. In all of them patents have begun to be incorporated as an evaluation element, but this is not sufficient.

With regard to public centers, the role played by government revision organisms on the perceptions of public servants (managers and administrators) setting up many barriers for the acknowledgement and reward of work and results has to be highlighted.

The perception on this topic is not generalized within the organization. The directors consider that if the transfer or marketing of the results is indeed stimulated through performance bonuses at the end of the year but the researchers do not consider them as incentives for the transfer of results but as incentives for the fulfillment of general goals and good performance.

Some scientific or university centers have succeeded in motivating the researcher so that he or she becomes interested in the transfer of results through economic incentives, rights on royalties and others mechanisms, but those are exceptional cases because the rules of these types of institutions do not favor this approach. In any case, the leadership of the director(s) has played very important part in this sense, because as promoters of the academy-industry link they have established conditions to strengthen it and incentives to reward it. I. Business Development and Client Capital Formation

The most outstanding centers have in common the fact that they cultivate a high level relation network and that they seek deliberately to maintain medium-term collaboration with their clients. In this sense, the participation of researchers is vital, because they are the people developing the knowledge and technologies that can be transferred. It is important that they work as a team with personnel from other areas, in this case the business area and to have competences allowing them to create value offers and know how to promote them. It is necessary that the centers contemplate hiring people with business training and experience.

Some centers (mainly technological development centers) have a department specialized in the business area and in some cases they have specialists rendering support services to the researchers forming part of the business development commission. There is no doubt that this is an area that university and scientific centers have to develop because in their cases, the link with the industry is a reaction to the need of a client resorting to them and not a systematic and proactive activity.

Currently, several centers of the sample have strategies to measure factors such as client’s fidelity and satisfaction, but they are only incipient. In the centers with a major marketing activity, some computer packages such as CRM have started being used and this, together with other practices, is beginning to strengthen the transfer of the research results.

V. CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORK

In our project we have made a characterization of the main deficiencies of knowledge management focused onto the generation of value through its transfer, based on the conduction of a diagnosis in institutions that are considered outstanding in Mexico, Brazil and Chile, three of the most advanced countries in Latin America with regard to scientific and technological activities. We developed a new diagnosis tool that allows us to evaluate the nine most relevant aspects of knowledge and intellectual capital management in the selected centers. The tool has been applied in more than 33 centers and the feedback obtained from the personnel of the centers in question has allowed us to identify very important aspects that the centers need to strengthen with regard to their management activities, representing a first evidence that the tool is useful.

In general terms, the most important lessons can be classified under two large headings: Structural Capital and Human Capital.

In Human Capital Terms -- we approached this first considering that the large engine of the organizations is the people working there -- it can be said that the centers that have a better performance in the field of value creation from the knowledge they generate are those having a leader or directing body made up by people knowing the importance of this aspect and doing what is necessary to set up the bases to develop it. The role of the directing personnel is essential and thus their business training (administration, marketing and finance) favors the development of a true value offer for the clients of a research center.

Another topic related to Human Capital is the rest of the work team. Normally, the people working in a research center belong to technical areas and thus it is difficult to create multidisciplinary teams and even more difficult to obtain that the researchers have the skills but above all the time to market their developments.

The centers with the best results have a staff with diverse backgrounds. Although it is true that the people developing the “product” that a center can market are its researchers, the personnel of other backgrounds permit the creation together with them of a value offer for a potential client. But the integration of different disciplines is not everything, does the lawyer know the importance of speeding up the times to concrete a legal instrument or the importance of intellectual property for the organization?; does the staff of the commercial area know how to identify their clients and how to determine the value offer and the mechanisms to promote it?, and the financial specialists, do they know that their institutions are valued a lot below their real potential? or that the prices are being established through cost methods and not through market or income methods?

Now then, in terms of Structural Capital, adequate norms and policies are requested to promote the transfer of research results by encouraging it using sound mechanisms, as well as supply the resources necessary to reach the goals. The centers with best results have already experience in this field, but they still have things to do. Currently the requirements for this type of institutions are numerous and they have to be strengthened with different types of supports and programs.

There are directors of R&D centers that mention that rules and requirements imposed on them have forced evolution to a different type of management oriented to generating value for money. It is important that the centers remain alert to continue their evolution, because the norms and policies are effective during a while and then cease working. In all cases, it is necessary to favor mechanisms permitting the capture and diffusion of knowledge in different modes, mainly with

regard to the lessons learned, because research results are normally published or recorded.

Finally, it could be seen that a positive balance between scientific and technological development was starting. Scientific centers seek to develop research that can eventually lead to applications and the technological development centers are trying to identify scientific research areas that could enrich future developments and allow them to generate more knowledge and thus a larger base for the creation of value.

With regard to future work, we intent to offer the questionnaire to the public as a self diagnosis tool available on the web (work currently under way), an important practical contribution shall be made so that the centers can have a starting point to plan improvement actions.

The project allowed us to document a group of good practices that can be a useful reference to plan an improvement strategy to look for effective applications of management techniques. To this end, in the coming months, we will develop a guide condensing the lessons learned from the studied centers.

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