The technology transfer in the energy sector: an analysis of Italian spin off companies.

The knowledge economy has featured the last few decades and the innovation is the strategic factor to improve the competitiveness of a country or a region. Within this context, the knowledge production and the technology transfer to companies have been becoming increasingly important components to be competitive in the global economy. In very different countries, public policies have been implementing in order to foster the collaborations between research centers and business, increase the number of patents, support for new business creation as a spin-off of public sector research. Intermediate structures intended to promote the convergence of businesses and public sector research (universities and research institutions) have been multiplied. This phenomenon regards, more or less, all technological fields. In this paper we examine the technology transfer mechanism in the energy sector and in particular we focus our research in spin off firms which operate in the energy sector. The energy sector is facing two big issues: the growing electricity demand and the environmental challenges. In such field, the energy sector plays a main role in the mitigation of climate change, to increasing efficiency and to guaranteeing energy security. For this reason the innovation in energy technology has become over the years a crucial strategic factor both for governments and companies. If it is refered to renewable energy, we can find out that the amount of investment (government and corporate) in research and development increased during the period 2004-2014 up to 129%: from $5.1 billion in 2004 to $ 11,7 billion in 2014. (Global Trends In Renewable Energy Investment 2015 - Frankfurt School-UNEP Centre ). Also the number of patent applications has increased from 2003 to 2013, about 65% more.(WIPO data elaborated by Istituto per la competitività ). According to some studies the innovation process not only affects big companies but also SMEs. The smaller companies make a greater effort in R&D, measured in relative terms with respect to sales, in particular the younger firms are more likely to perform R&D. What we want to examine in this paper is the incidence of R & D investment on the creation of start-ups, in particular as research results and patents produced within universities and research institutes have enabled the creation of spin off firms in the energy sector. Our research has focused on Italian spin off firms by analyzing the characteristics of these companies making a comparison with those of other sectors.