Product Development in Science: a collaborative framework to develop university technology towards commercialisation

Although extensive resources are spent each year on university scientific research, the migration of this knowledge to the market remains low; only a few university research projects manage to generate the expected impact on nations' economies. This thesis proposes a framework that combines best practices from technology innovation management and product development to steer university scientific research projects towards commercialisation. A case study of a collaboration between designers and scientists showed several contributions of utilising such a framework, mainly in the early recognition of commercial opportunities for new technologies and creating market-oriented technology demonstrators.