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Imagining value, imagining users: academic technology transfer for health innovation
Fiona Alice Miller1, Carrie B Sanders, Pascale Lehoux
1Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5T 3M6. fiona.miller@utoronto.ca
Social Science & Medicine (1982)
|February 24, 2009
Summary
Technology transfer offices (TTOs) value early-stage health innovations by imagining their context of use, focusing on market players and systemic innovation. This ethnographic study reveals how TTOs construct value in health technology transfer.
Area of Science:
- Health Services Research
- Innovation Management
- Sociology of Technology
Background:
- Governments invest in health innovation, seeking efficient and effective systems.
- Universities and public research organizations play a key role in health innovation transfer.
- Understanding the valuation process in early-stage health innovation is crucial for optimizing public investment.
Purpose of the Study:
- To explore how health and health system imperatives influence value judgments in early-stage health innovation.
- To analyze the role of technology transfer professionals in valuing health innovations.
- To understand how technology transfer offices (TTOs) construct sustainable innovation systems.
Main Methods:
- Ethnographic study of technology transfer offices (TTOs) in Ontario and British Columbia, Canada.
- Analysis of the valuation process for early-stage health innovations.
- Examination of how TTOs consider users and market dynamics.
Main Results:
- The valuation of health innovations is not merely task-specific but involves 'imagining' the end product in its context of use.
- Technology transfer professionals actively construct innovation value, prioritizing commercial partners as immediate users.
- Ultimate end-users (patients, clinicians, health systems) are considered as future consumers within a broader systemic logic.
Conclusions:
- Technology transfer offices (TTOs) play a constitutive role in shaping the value of health innovations.
- The valuation process integrates market considerations with the imagined context of use and systemic innovation goals.
- Understanding TTOs' user-centric and systemic approach is key to effective health innovation policy and investment.
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