According to Howells[1] their role is to act as brokers or third parties in order to build the bridges between the various participations within the open system.
[2] The variety of intermediaries ranges from specialized government agencies and energy-service firms, electric power utilities to university liaison departments or regional technology centers.
The following chapters take the “collective research centers” as an example for technology intermediaries that have been examined extensively by André Spithoven and his colleagues in their scientific works.
[8] We therefore face a shift “[…] from innovation that is firm-centric one that is networking-centric.”[8] In fact, the effective and efficient usage of external knowledge is more complex than obvious on first glance.
[3] Understanding that absorptive capacity does not necessarily have to take place within merely the firm-level, but can happen at the inter-organizational level, raises the question of the type of roles technology intermediaries may play.
The following three main interrelated activities of collective research centers have been named by their CEOs to increase innovative capacity of the network members:[3] The large fraction of R&D-related activities within research centers, in comparison to the proportion of pure R&D-activities, proofs the importance of their roles.
Their own high R&D activity intensity enables them to absorb very specialized knowledge and transfer it to their members in ways that lead to easier applicable information.
Technology transfer intermediaries can help overcome the barriers to commercialization by mediating between inventors, developers and marketers.
[2] Many studies examined the concepts of open innovation and absorptive capacity in large enterprises with a high level of R&D.
This becomes especially relevant for companies operating in the traditional sector as it generally meets the following characteristics: Those characteristics easily reveal the inherent problem: Firms of traditional sectors, generally speaking, lack the resources to participate sufficiently in activities that enhance or develop absorptive capacity.
SMEs need to heavily draw on their networks to find missing innovation resources, and due to their smallness, they will be confronted with the boundaries of their organizations rather sooner than later”.
[3] Hence, for this type of industry, technology intermediaries are potential ways to overcome the lack of business, financing and marketing expertise.
[2] For instance, the “collective research centers” of Belgium are doing knowledge absorption and diffusion in their role as technology intermediaries.
Therefore, one of the main activities of the collective research centers is building R&D capacity and offering technology transfer services.