The transfer of innovative technologies plays a central role in the innovation process, which in developed countries is mainly the result of interaction between various players: R&D, technology transfer, commercial sector companies and financing organizations.
All the more so as this transfer process is becoming more and more common, given the acceleration in its pace over the last two centuries, since the start of the industrial revolution.
Until the end of the twentieth century, the entrepreneur was considered as an innovative element in an isolated company, but it has become apparent that it is now necessary to take into account the company's environment in order to understand the dynamics of innovation by including new elements from its environment that interact with it.
Against the backdrop of the digital revolution that began in this century, it is important to emphasize that the transfer of innovative technologies will be at the heart of technological progress in the years to come.
However, the process of transferring innovative technologies is multi-faceted, relying on a variety of mechanisms and organizations that need to be identified, and whose mechanisms, missions, advantages and disadvantages need to be understood.
The aim of this article is therefore, for all those who want to innovate, to clearly distinguish each of these forms of transfer, so as to be able to use them in an optimal and targeted way.