Abstract

Scientific knowledge valorization and impact is becoming a major topic for RMA, facing the need to produce evidence of the economic and societal relevance of the research activities performed by the respective teams or organizations. Complementary, in a time of scientific and technological development sophistication and acceleration, demanding for higher investments in both infrastructures and running costs, the effective and efficient valorization of research results becomes mandatory to ensure an economically sustainable operation.
In higher TRL projects (applied research, demonstration and pilot lines, etc.), these objectives are easier to achieve, due to their proximity (both in terms of focus and time interval) to concrete challenges or problems from companies or society. When it comes to lower TRL projects (fundamental research, proof of concept, etc.), some of its characteristics pose bigger challenges to valorization and impact, such as their fuzziest, more distant link to application, the (usually) longer development period, the way results are documented, etc.
In this context, RMA need to address several challenges, namely:

• How to identify research results with potential for valorization.
• How to formalize (describe) the results in an appropriate format to promote valorization.
• How to detect the research results as soon as possible (including intermediary results): this is particularly relevant in long term scientific projects or activities.
• How to maximize the potential for valorization: from “single use” results to cross fertilization, namely in the more horizontal scientific and technological domains (ex.: the so-called key enabling technologies). This is also relevant for results from applied research projects or activities and promotes Open Innovation practices.
• How to do all this minimizing the “interference” in the original research projects/activities and related teams: researchers should not be “deviated” from their main activities nor burden with significant extra “bureaucratic” work).
• How to keep track of the research results impact: this is particularly challenging in the lower TRL activities.

There are many research results with a high potential for valorization “hidden and forgotten” in research organizations. A higher attention and better understanding of this reality and the implementation of appropriate methodologies, with the support of new digital technologies and tools, can (will) unleash this potential, with a significant impact both in those organizations and in society.

The session will address this theme, by introducing some of its main dimensions and illustrating them with examples, and launch the discussion with the participants