There is also an organization at headquarters in Fraunhofer that supports patents and startups, but technology commercialization is mainly led by individual institutes. Researchers should think about the market, application fields, and customers from the research planning stage.
Marianne Hoffmann, Asia manager at the headquarters of the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, met with Korean reporters at the Munich headquarters on the 13th local time and explained Fraunhofer's approach to technology commercialization this way.
Founded in 1949, Fraunhofer is Europe's largest applied research organization, with 75 institutes across Germany and about 32,000 employees. In Korea, Fraunhofer is noted as a representative model for linking research成果 to industry. Fraunhofer's annual budget is about €3.6 billion (about 6.12 trillion won), with basic government support, competitive public research projects, and contract research revenue from corporations each accounting for roughly one-third.
In Korea's Government-funded research institute (government-funded research institutes), the technology licensing office (TLO) supports patents, the discovery of demand-side corporations, and transfer contracts. Fraunhofer also has patent and startup support organizations at headquarters, but the main actors in commercialization are individual institutes and researchers. From the research planning stage, they look for markets and customers and directly decide on commercialization paths—such as contract research, licensing, and startups—depending on the nature of the technology.
Hoffmann said, "Each institute operates like a small company. It decides its research fields and portfolio, which corporations to work with, and is responsible even for financial sustainability," adding, "The role of the sales function is not confined to a specific department but distributed among all researchers. A researcher is at times a researcher and a salesperson, as well as a risk manager and a value-creation manager."
The paths to technology commercialization also vary depending on the characteristics of the technology and customer demand. When a corporation presents a technical problem that needs solving, an institute conducts contract research to jointly develop the technology. In some cases, technology is first developed through a public research project, then transferred to a demand-side corporation or consolidated through patents, licenses, and startups.
Hoffmann explained that corporate contract research accounts for one-third of total resources, but they do not chase only short-term results. Hoffmann said, "When choosing projects, rather than repeating simple research and development (R&D), we also consider whether an institute can accumulate new knowledge," adding, "Corporations also know that results cannot be guaranteed in research. On that basis, instead of artificially raising success rates, we share and manage research uncertainty transparently with customers."
Government basic support funds are used for early-stage research without customers. MP3, one of Fraunhofer's hallmark成果, underwent about 10 years of preliminary research before customers emerged. At the time, German corporations did not recognize the technology's potential, but it was first commercialized in the United States and Asia, which later led to license income.
Fraunhofer says it currently holds about 7,000 active patent families and has produced about 500 spin-offs based on research成果. Whether to transfer technology to an existing corporation or spin it off as a separate company is decided primarily by the institute that developed the technology. The startup support organization at headquarters assists institutes in spinning off their technologies into corporations.
Fraunhofer's technology transfer does not stop at patents and startups. According to Hoffmann, about 60% of Fraunhofer researchers work on fixed-term contracts, and many move to industry after gaining experience at an institute for three to seven years. Some are hired for the duration of the projects they join, and if they fail to secure follow-up projects, their contracts may end.
Hoffmann said, "This is not a brain drain but technology transfer through people. Researchers who move to corporations become cooperation partners or customers who understand Fraunhofer's technologies and facilities, and they help connect new joint research," adding, "This builds a close relationship with industry."