From ivory tower to living lab: accelerating the use-of university knowledge

University-industry collaboration in research projects has received little attention in studies on the performance of universities in bringing knowledge to market. This situation holds also true for the differences between regions and for understanding the hampering factors in collaboration, including regional ones. To fill this gap, in this paper I attempt to characterize the outcomes of technology projects-in terms of market introduction, continuation, stagnation, and failure-and to identify the barriers, particularly regional ones. I also propose an extended use of a tool that facilitates and accelerates market introduction-that is, living labs. The study draws on a database of 370 technology projects covering two different regions in the Netherlands and on in-depth data of 51 of such projects in a limited number of technologies.