Science-to-business marketing

Science-to-business marketing (S2B marketing) entails the marketing of research conducted at research institutions, particularly universities, to industry or other interested parties. The acronym S2B follows a series of marketing acronyms used to shorten and popularise marketing specialisations, including (B2C) (business-to-consumer marketing) and (B2B) (business-to-business marketing).

Introduction to science-to-business marketing

Science-to-Business (S2B) Marketing aims at the use of marketing principles for the area of science, supporting the successful commercialisation of research competencies, capacities and results from a research institution to its research customers.<ref name="science marketing"/> The objective thereby is to develop, test and provide new models, instruments and proceedings for research commercialisation that enable universities and research institutions to market their research more effectively. The approach uses existing instruments from Business to Business Marketing, Service Marketing and Technology & Innovation Marketing.

The special feature of S2B Marketing is the determination of the market, in particular, industry, as the starting point for all research activities. S2B is generally focused on technology-intensive departments but can also be applied in all disciplines of research. The industry engaged in research and development is identified as the key target market. This leads to research customers, who are willing to pay for scientific research, being the centre of consideration.

Research impact – the need for science / industry interaction

Today's marketplace is characterised by increased competition, rapid change and a shift towards knowledge-based economies. This development is fostered by factors such as rapid technological developments, globalisation and the maturing of domestic markets. With innovation enabling an economy's success under these conditions,<ref>Furman, Jeffrey; Porter, Michael; Stern, Scott (2002): The determinants of national innovative capacity, Research Policy 31, pp. 899–933.</ref><ref>PMSEIC Independent Working Group (1998): 'University-industry linked research in Australia', Canberra: The Prime Minister’s Science, Engineering and Innovation Council.</ref> research has become a key driver in economic performance.<ref name="OECD"/> An extensive outsourcing of research to specialised institutions such as universities has resulted in an increased number of linkages between industry entities and universities.<ref name="OECD"/><ref>Poyago-Theotoky, Joanna; Beat, John; Siegel, Donald (2002): Universities and fundamental research: Reflections on the growth of university-industry partnerships, Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 18(1), pp. 10–21.</ref><ref>Etzkowitz, Henry; Leydesdorff, Loet (2000): The dynamics of innovation: from national systems and "Mode 2" to a triple helix of university-industry-government relations, Research Policy 29, pp. 109–123.</ref><ref name="key drivers"/> These relationships and commercialisation projects provide a great potential to foster innovation, leading to a need to pay particular attention to the management of technology commercialisation processes.

In the last decade, both private organisations as well as public institutions have increased their combined efforts to foster the transfer of knowledge, in order to respond to the rapid change in their competitive landscapes and the worldwide speed of innovation.<ref name="key drivers"/> Especially, the great significance of innovation is regarded as the catalyst for an extended orientation towards University-Industry-Relationships. Taken into consideration the global tendency towards a decrease in public research funding, the commercialisation of scientific research is one of the most critical challenges for innovative research and development. For the purpose of establishing efficient collaborations between industrial and entrepreneurial partners, researchers are required to incorporate the service dimension of their scientific work more strongly. S2B Marketing thereby helps to successfully commercialise research and strengthens the linkage between research organisations and industry.

Organisations involved in science-to-business marketing

Essentially there are two main actors in the commercialisation process: research institutions and industry or government departments interested in purchasing research outcomes or capabilities.

1. Research organisations build closer links with industry in order to:

• commercialise research
• allow academics to gain relevant industry experience in order to make their research more relevant to society
• generate additional income for further research and education through commercial returns
• improve their market-oriented acting and thinking<ref name="lambert review">Lambert, Richard (2003): Lambert Review of Business-University Collaboration. HMSO, London.</ref><ref>Bok, Derek (2003): Universities in the Marketplace.</ref>
• motivate and provide incentive to staff and students through more stimulating and relevant work and the provision of alternate career paths

2. Industry engages research institutions for a number of reasons:

• the successful innovation of new products and services into the marketplace provide significant profits and growth opportunities for new firms
• ever fiercer competition inevitably requires considerable efforts of both companies and universities in order to maintain competitiveness
• Business require innovation, however do not always have the ability of finances to undertake the required research<ref name="science marketing"/>
• Industry attempts to specifically benefits from:

- Access to public funds

- Access to university research results

- Access to university competencies and innovation capacity

• Research offers businesses the possibility to have tasks solved by a new, external perspective and by applying new methods resulting in an improvement of both the innovation and the business success of a company.
• Cooperation with universities enables companies to maintain or even improve competitiveness in dynamic market environments.<ref name="lambert review"/><ref>Schartinger, Doris; Schibany, Andras; Gassler, Helmut (2001): Interactive relations between universities and firms: empirical evidence for Austria, Journal of Technology Transfer, 26(3), pp. 255–268.</ref>

3. Furthermore, society benefits from the cooperation between research and industry in a number of ways:

• promote economic growth – without technological change, advancement in productivity and therefore GDP would be limited to increasing labour and material productivity, finite sources of improvement
• strengthen the regional economy
• commercialisation of research enables broader public access to resulting technologies, which in turn can transform lives.
• improvement of living standards requires improved technology

Process of Science-to-Business Marketing

Following Sabisch<ref>Sabisch, Helmut (2003), Erfolgsfaktoren des Wissens- und Technologietransfers. In: Pleschak, Franz (Ed.): Technologietransfer – Anforderungen und Entwicklungs-tendenzen, Dokumentation einer Tagung des Fraunhofer-Institut für Systemtechnik und Innovationsforschung im Auftrag des Bundesministeriums für Wirtschaft und Arbeit, Stuttgart 2003, pp. 17–26.</ref> and Walter<ref>Walter, Achim (2003), Technologietransfer zwischen Wissenschaft und Wirtschaft. Voraussetzungen für den Erfolg, Wiesbaden.</ref>

Challenges in the Science-to-Business Interaction

Extracting value in the form of research-based technologies and innovations from the university and research organisations is a challenge faced by technology transfer offices, regional development agencies and Governments, and, of course, by Universities and business organisations the world over.<ref>Baaken, Thomas; Francis, Anthony; Davey, Todd; Kliewe, Thorsten(2008): A model for the assessment and extraction of entrepreneurial value from University research, Promoting Entrepreneurship by Universities Conference Proceedings, Hämeenlinna, Finland.</ref> Despite the illustrated prominence of technology commercialisation and university-industry links, little research and few suitable approaches exist. In fact, the challenge is not a lack of technology offers or entrepreneurs / capitalists / companies (from here referred to as the 'partners of technology transfer') with needs to receive the technology, but it is the transfer and partnering process itself that requires most attention.

Differing priorities between research institutions and industry and/or entrepreneurs have been cited as a reason for this.<ref>Belkhodja, Omar; Landry, Réjean (2005): "The triple-helix collaboration : Why do researchers collaborate with industry and the government? What are the factors that influence the perceived barriers?"</ref> For instance, research institutions are, contrary to result- / market-oriented businesses, more process-oriented and primary focused on new knowledge. These different types of research objectives, coupled with differences in organisational cultures<ref name="key drivers"/> relate to different behaviour exhibited by researchers and business people. This, in turn, has a significant impact on the creation of partnerships and a successful transfer of technologies. These issues have proven to be very complex, with a deep-rooted misunderstanding between the two not being sufficiently and adequately addressed.<ref name="cyert-goodman"/> Therefore, a strategic marketing approach is needed in order to assess and extract entrepreneurial value from University research most effectively.

However, a large number of these linkages fail,<ref name="cyert-goodman"/> and a recent study on information and communication technology industries showed organisations to perceive research institutes and cooperative research centres as the least important source of information, knowledge and skills.<ref>Hyland, Paul; Marceau, Jane; Sloan, Tarry (2004): Sources of innovation and ideas in ICT Firms in Australia, in 5th International CINet Conference, Sydney, pp. 870–879.</ref> Despite their importance and frequent failures, however, research on university–industry relationships (UIR) and the factors influencing their fate, especially from a marketing perspective, remains sparse. However, there is a growing research understanding in the area of Science-to-Business marketing.

External links

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