Transforming Knowledge into Technology: Tracking the Progress of Innovation Ecosystems
August 5, 2025
August 5, 2025 ・ minutes reading time
Measuring ecosystem performance requires tracking how knowledge flows between universities, companies, and government institutions over time. When these connections strengthen, they reveal successful collaboration patterns and highlight strategies that create long-term growth. This analysis gives policymakers concrete tools to build more dynamic and competitive innovation environments and presents a method for measuring knowledge transfer efficiency and explores how these insights can guide policy decisions.
How to map knowledge transfer efficiency
Innovation ecosystems thrive when they can successfully translate scientific knowledge and production capabilities into technologies that generate value. This process relies on connections between research institutions, industries, and policymakers. Synergies between research institutions, industries, and policymakers are key to achieving this. In well-functioning innovation ecosystems, these connections are strong and can be used as a standard for knowledge transfer efficiency across all other ecosystems.
By benchmarking against frontier ecosystems, other ecosystems can identify gaps, prioritize reforms, and focus investments to achieve their full potential. While some regions may need to improve collaboration between science and industry, others may need to focus on boosting the quality and relevance of their outputs.
For example, Chile and Spain demonstrate two different—but successful—paths to improving their efficiency. Chile has made significant progress by narrowing gaps in both science and production, though it has yet to reach its full potential. The country's patenting activity is converging toward expected levels based on its scientific and production outputs, indicating that knowledge flows between Chilean scientists, companies, and inventors are steadily improving. Spain represents a more advanced stage, having achieved frontier-level performance in the synergy between its production and technological sectors.
Leveraging Insights for Policy Improvement
The ability of an innovation ecosystem to efficiently transfer knowledge evolves over time, and tracking it provides crucial insights for policymakers. By measuring improvements in knowledge transfer efficiency from scientific papers and product exports into patents, countries can better understand which policies have contributed to these advancements and which areas require further attention.
However, some innovation ecosystems still face challenges that hinder this efficiency:
- Missing connections between key actors. When researchers, industries, and policymakers are not well-connected, knowledge cannot flow smoothly, delaying the translation of scientific outputs into viable technologies.
- Insufficient quality of technological outputs. If the quality of technological outputs is not high enough, they may not be competitive on the international stage, limiting their potential to reach global markets.
- Brain drain and knowledge leakage. Sometimes a country's scientific talent and innovations end up benefiting other ecosystems more than their home region, meaning the country isn't fully capturing the economic returns from its own research investments.
For policymakers, the key takeaway is that this indicator can serve as a powerful tool to assess their current state and identify potential causes of inefficiency. By identifying missing links and system weaknesses, governments can develop targeted policies to improve the flow of knowledge, enhance the quality of their outputs, and foster a more connected and resilient innovation ecosystem.
By continuously monitoring and understanding their ecosystem’s innovation efficiency, countries can fine-tune their innovation strategies, create more effective policies, and ultimately boost their global competitiveness.
