The Commercialization Gap Nobody Measures

Europe's innovation debate often focuses on what enters the research pipeline. Much less attention is paid to what quietly leaves it. Between scientific discovery and commercial adoption lies a poorly understood space where opportunities are delayed, overlooked, or abandoned long before they appear in any startup statistic or technology transfer report.

There is no shortage of metrics in the innovation economy. Universities measure publications, citations, grant income, patent filings and research impact. Governments track R&D expenditure. Investors monitor venture creation, funding rounds and exits. Ranking systems compare institutions based on academic performance, internationalisation and research excellence.

Yet despite this abundance of measurement, one of the most consequential stages in the innovation process remains surprisingly difficult to see.

It sits somewhere between discovery and adoption. Between the publication of a breakthrough paper and the launch of a company. Between the filing of a patent and the signing of a licensing agreement. Between an invention disclosure and a commercial product.

This space has no universally accepted metric. It rarely appears in annual reports and seldom attracts the same attention as startup creation or venture investment. Yet it may be one of the most important determinants of whether research ultimately creates economic and societal value.

It is the commercialization gap.

The Missing Middle

Innovation is often described as a linear process. Research generates discoveries. Discoveries lead to inventions. Inventions become products. Products create companies. Companies generate economic growth.

Reality rarely follows such a tidy sequence.

Most technologies do not move smoothly from laboratory to market. Many spend years navigating organizational processes, funding constraints, regulatory uncertainty, market validation exercises, and strategic decisions regarding intellectual property. Some eventually succeed. Many do not.

The challenge is that failure is often invisible. When a startup collapses, its failure is visible. Investors, employees and customers all notice. When a patent never attracts commercial interest, however, there is often no equivalent signal. The opportunity simply fades from view.

The same is true for technologies that are technically promising but never reach the right industrial partner, research outputs that are published but never evaluated through a commercial lens, or invention disclosures that receive protection but lack a clear pathway toward market adoption.

By the time these opportunities disappear, they are rarely counted as losses. They simply cease to be discussed.

Why Europe Is Paying Attention

This question increasingly sits at the centre of European innovation policy. The European Commission's planned European Innovation Act explicitly identifies weaknesses in research commercialization as one of the barriers preventing Europe from fully translating scientific excellence into economic leadership. Among the challenges highlighted by the Commission are the exploitation of intellectual property, collaboration between academia and industry, and the mechanisms that allow innovative solutions to reach the market. [1]

The concern mirrors themes raised in broader discussions about European competitiveness. Over the past two decades, Europe has built a substantial research base. Its universities and research organizations continue to produce high-quality science across multiple disciplines. Yet policymakers remain concerned that too few of these research outcomes become scalable companies, globally competitive technologies or new industrial capabilities. [1]

The result is a growing recognition that innovation policy cannot focus solely on research creation. It must also focus on what happens afterward.

What Startup Metrics Don't Tell Us

The growing popularity of university startup rankings reflects a positive development. They help shift attention toward outcomes rather than inputs.

The Redstone University Index represents one of the most ambitious attempts to quantify entrepreneurial performance in higher education. Its findings reveal striking differences in startup creation across European institutions and suggest substantial unrealized economic potential if commercialization efficiency were improved. [2], [3], [4]

Yet startup metrics reveal only part of the story. A startup is not the beginning of commercialization. It is often the result of a long chain of decisions that occurred years earlier.

Before a company is incorporated, someone must recognize an opportunity. Before investors become interested, someone must articulate a value proposition. Before a licensing negotiation begins, someone must decide that a technology is worth pursuing.

Startup numbers capture the outcome. They tell us relatively little about the thousands of judgments, prioritizations and evaluations that preceded it.

This matters because the largest source of inefficiency may not exist at the end of the process. It may exist at the beginning.

The Challenge of Visibility

Technology transfer professionals are familiar with a recurring dilemma. Research organizations generate far more intellectual property, expertise and technical insight than they can actively commercialize. Resources are finite. Time is finite. Personnel are finite.

As a result, institutions constantly make choices about where to focus attention. Some opportunities receive detailed assessment. Others receive basic review. Many receive none at all.

This is not the result of negligence. It is the unavoidable consequence of managing large portfolios of knowledge under limited resource conditions.

The question, however, is whether these decisions are always made with sufficient information. How many opportunities are overlooked because their potential is difficult to communicate? How many inventions appear unremarkable until market conditions change? How many licensing possibilities remain unexplored because no obvious commercial partner is visible at the time of evaluation?

These questions sit at the heart of the commercialization gap.

Lessons from Innovation Readiness

Some institutions have begun developing frameworks designed to bring greater visibility to this stage of the process.

One of the most influential examples comes from KTH Royal Institute of Technology through its Innovation Readiness Level methodology. The framework emerged from a recognition that technical readiness alone provides an incomplete picture of innovation potential. A technology may function perfectly while remaining commercially immature. Market understanding, customer validation, team capability, implementation pathways and business readiness all influence whether an invention ultimately creates impact. The framework therefore attempts to evaluate progress across multiple dimensions rather than focusing exclusively on technical performance.

What makes this approach particularly significant is that it shifts attention toward questions that occur before commercialization outcomes become visible. Instead of asking whether an innovation succeeded, it asks whether the conditions for success are beginning to emerge.

In many respects, this is an attempt to make the commercialization gap more visible.

The Cost of Friction

Universities across Europe are increasingly experimenting with ways to reduce the friction that slows commercialization.

The TenU University Spin-out Investment Terms initiative emerged from a collaboration between leading universities and investors who recognized that excessive complexity in negotiations can discourage company formation and investment. The objective was not to alter the quality of underlying research but to improve the processes surrounding commercialization. [3]

Similar thinking can be seen in recent Danish efforts to establish common licensing principles across universities. The logic is straightforward. If researchers, investors and industrial partners encounter less uncertainty and fewer administrative barriers, more opportunities may progress far enough to receive meaningful evaluation. [3]

These reforms are often discussed in legal or operational terms. But they are fundamentally about visibility. The easier it becomes to assess and pursue opportunities, the more opportunities remain in play.

Measuring What Matters

The commercialization gap raises an uncomfortable possibility. Europe may be measuring the wrong things.

Not because publication metrics, patents or startup counts lack value. They remain essential indicators. Rather, because they largely measure outputs that are already visible.

The challenge may be understanding what remains invisible. The opportunities that have not yet become companies. The intellectual property that has not yet been licensed. The research outcomes that have not yet found their market. The ideas that remain commercially undefined.

If Europe is serious about strengthening competitiveness, these hidden assets increasingly deserve attention.

After all, economic value is rarely created at the moment a company is formed. It is created much earlier, when someone recognises that knowledge can become something more.

A Different View of Innovation

The debate surrounding innovation often assumes that the most important question is how to generate more discoveries.

Yet Europe's universities already generate an extraordinary volume of scientific knowledge. The more pressing question may be how much value remains trapped between discovery and adoption.

This is not simply a technology transfer issue. Nor is it solely a university challenge. It is increasingly a question of economic development, industrial strategy and competitiveness.

The future growth potential identified in studies such as the Redstone University Index ultimately depends on thousands of individual decisions made long before startups appear in rankings or investment databases. [2], [3]

Understanding those decisions, and making them better, may prove to be one of the most important innovation challenges of the coming decade.

Because before there is a startup. Before there is a licensing deal. Before there is a commercial success story. There is usually a period when the opportunity itself is still uncertain.

And it is in that uncertainty that the commercialization gap continues to exist.

Sources

1. DigitalEurope. (2025, October 3). A European Innovation Act to boost commercialisation and enable growth. https://cdn.digitaleurope.org/uploads/2025/10/DIGITALEUROPE-European-Innovation-Act-to-boost-commercialisation-and-enable-growth-03102025.pdf
2. European Commission, Directorate-General for Research and Innovation. (2025, December 4). Commission concludes public consultation on the European Innovation Act. https://research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/news/all-research-and-innovation-news/commission-concludes-public-consultation-european-innovation-act-2025-12-04_en
3. European Commission, Directorate-General for Research and Innovation. (n.d.). European Innovation Act. Retrieved August 7, 2026, from https://research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/strategy/support-policy-making/shaping-eu-research-and-innovation-policy/european-innovation-act_en
4. European Parliament. (n.d.). European Innovation Act. Legislative Train Schedule. Retrieved August 7, 2026, from https://www.europarl.europa.eu/legislative-train/theme-a-new-plan-for-europe-s-sustainable-prosperity-and-competitiveness/file-european-innovation-act