Proof of Concept Centers in the United States: an exploratory look

Enhancing translational medical research through proof-of-concept services: clinicians' perspectives

Although the proof-of-concept (POC) phase is critical for the success of translational medical research (TMR), its use remains limited, and clinicians are frequently uncertain about how to seek assistance from POC teams when experiencing difficulties with TMR. Therefore, this study explored clinicians' awareness of POC and the supportive reference services offered by POC teams. We distributed an internet-based questionnaire to 702 clinicians who conducted TMR between August 2022 and March 2023. Descriptive statistics, chi-square test, Wilcoxon rank sum test, Kruskal-Wallis rank sum test, and stepwise logistic regression analysis were applied. Clinicians' awareness of POC was low (69.23%). However, young clinicians (aged 21-30 years) with a higher educational level than their colleagues, good understanding of POC, reliance on the hospital's TMR policy and serviceability, and need or great need for services to identify suitable technology, literature, and intelligence services were likely to choose 'agree' over 'disagree' regarding the ability for POC services to help solve difficulties with TMR. Favourable conditions should be created to encourage clinicians to fully use POC services, and clinicians should actively acquire POC knowledge to enhance their understanding of the value of POC services in TMR. Notably, promoting the establishment of POC centres or platforms at the national level would facilitate the use of POC services by clinicians conducting TMR.

Research on science and technological entrepreneurship education: What needs to happen next?

This paper discusses the challenges of technological entrepreneurship education in the current education system and the questions that need to be answered to improve the efficacy and efficiency of technological entrepreneurship education. The nature of technological entrepreneurship requires a diversified set of skills for success; however, the traditional education system focuses on single discipline. Consequently, it is difficult for either engineers and scientists who are lacking managerial skills or management students who are lacking of engineer or science oriented knowledge to be successful. A further concern is that different communities have entirely different perceptions of how entrepreneurship is defined often causing both confusion and disagreement in communications between researchers and educators with each other. The paper considers the existing literature and develops a series of comprehensive questions that still need to be addressed. By answering these questions, the traditional education methods can be transformed to be more appropriate and useful for technological entrepreneurship education.

EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER IN KOREAN UNIVERSITIES

This paper is to elucidate the determinant of technology transfer in universities in Korea. To achieve this goal, the paper relies on a unique dataset where university data were sourced from IUCF, and data were gathered from a number of sources. We apply a negative binomial regression analysis to estimate models testing 12 research hypotheses for 135 universities in Korea. Our findings show that the characteristics of research funds, research productivity and the presence of incubators within universities are positively related with financial rewards in terms of technology transfer. Unlike in the United States, research funds sponsored by the government are not related to technology transfer. Patents, technology transfer experts, firms located adjacent to the university, incubators within the university, and research productivity are positively related to technology transfer. The empirical findings in this study indicate that in order to boost technology transfer, universities should undertake cooperative research, especially with private firms, and should also use incubators at the initial stage of the technology transfer mechanism.