CDM Working Papers Series

This paper is an empirical analysis of the impact that different organisational forms of the Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs) in Europe have on their licensing activity. Given the great diversity of organization forms prevailing across European TTOs, our paper attempts to shed more light on which of those forms might be more efficient. We use as a measure of efficiency and as dependent variable of our model the number of license agreements concluded. Controlling for staff, invention disclosures, quality of the academic institution, life science orientation and demand for technology, we find evidence for the importance of personnel with a PhD in science in the TTO to facilitate communication between academics and the TTO. We find that the age of the TTO has a significant but negative effect. We do not find a positive effect for private organization of the TTO. Our data is derived fro