Europe’s Research Breakthroughs Face a Technology Transfer Bottleneck
25-Oct-2026
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Source : The European Patent Office (EPO)
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Visits : 50
• First comprehensive mapping of more than 800 European technology transfer offices reveals that most are small or mid-sized and face key capacity gap
• The study provides a Europe-wide benchmark and identifies key priorities for strengthening technology transfer capacity, expertise and incentives
• CNRS, Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft and CEA are the European public research institutions filing more European patent applications in 2025
MUNICH - Europe is a powerhouse of world-class research, but its ability to turn that excellence into technologies and companies is increasingly important for competitiveness. Technology transfer offices (TTOs) help researchers identify and protect inventions and connect them with companies, investors and entrepreneurs. A new European Patent Office (EPO) study, developed with ASTP – Europe’s association for technology-transfer professionals – and Fraunhofer ISI, provides the first Europe-wide benchmark by combining patent evidence with survey data from more than 800 European TTOs, according to the official website of EPO.
“Technology transfer is a competitiveness issue. Europe’s universities and public research organizations are at the forefront of scientific discovery, but breakthroughs must move from the lab to the market if they are to create jobs, growth and strategic autonomy,” said EPO President António Campinos. “This means strengthening technology transfer, improving access to finance and building a more integrated single market for innovation. The study presented today identifies six priorities to help Europe turn research excellence into market success.”
European TTOs vary widely in size, maturity and activity
Of the 809 TTOs analyzed, 90.5% were small or mid-scale, while 9.5% were large-scale offices. Large-scale TTOs have six times more staff, support institutions with 23 times more research expenditure and nearly seven times the research workforce and receive almost 16 times more invention disclosures than small or mid-scale offices.
Once an invention has entered the TTO pipeline, small and mid-scale offices can help it progress towards a patent, license or venture at rates comparable to larger offices. The difference is one of capacity: larger offices can process substantially more activity per staff member because they benefit from specialist expertise, established processes and stronger commercial networks.
Connecting research, expertise and investors across Europe
The study suggests that local TTOs can strengthen their capacity by drawing on wider expertise, finance and market networks. Most offices are too small to maintain every capability in-house. The data support a model in which close contact with researchers remains local, while specialist market knowledge, technology intelligence, training and investor access are shared through regional and European support structures.
The data also highlight the growing pan-European dimension of technology transfer. Research-based technologies are emerging from a wider range of countries, while the companies, investors and entrepreneurs best placed to develop them may be located elsewhere in Europe. Greater visibility, brokerage and cross-border connections can help promising inventions find the right partners and address the still-limited scale of cross-border technology transfer.
Europe has caught up on university ownership, but a gap remains
Patents with university involvement account for around 9% of European patents, close to the US level. European universities also own a much larger share of their inventions than twenty years ago. However, 40.7% of European patents directly owned by European universities lapse within ten years, compared with 26.3% of those owned by US universities, pointing to challenges in sustaining and commercializing promising technologies. As competition intensifies, notably with China’s renewed focus on university technology commercialization in its 15th Five-Year Plan, Europe needs stronger technology transfer support to help research reach the market.
Public research is increasingly important in strategic technologies
European patent applications involving a university, public research organization or research hospital have more than doubled in the past two decades, from around 3 200 in 2006 to almost 8 000 in 2025. Germany, France and the United Kingdom remain the leading countries, but their combined share fell from nearly 64% to about 55%. Rather than a decline among leading countries, this indicates a broader European research base, with particularly strong growth in the Netherlands and Spain and increased activity across many others.
Research institutions were applicants on about 34% of European-origin biotechnology applications, 29% in quantum technologies and 26% in pharmaceuticals in 2025. Their ability to move inventions towards the market is therefore strategically important. The leading European public research institutions are CNRS (France), Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft (Germany), CEA (France), Inserm (France) and imec (Belgium).
New tools to explore Europe’s public research landscape
Alongside the report, the EPO is launching a Data Desk dashboard on European public research, enabling users to explore patenting activity by country, institution and technology. The EPO's Deep Tech Finder (DTF) has also been expanded with additional data on European public research organizations, further supporting connections between research institutions, industry and investors.