Barriers to Commercialization of Research Findings in Humanities in Iran

Abstract

Nowadays, the changes in the dominant economic models, the emergence of knowledge-based economy and the lack of research budgets have caused the academic and research centers to pay attention to the commercialization of research findings. Although, there exist some studies pertaining to this topic, most of them have dealt with natural sciences rather than humanities and soft technology. To bridge this gap, the current study tries to identify and overcome the barriers to commercialization of research findings in humanities using a contextual theory and an interpretive approach. The study uses qualitative methods in three steps. In the first step, previous studies related to this topic are scrutinized and several barriers to research commercialization are extracted. Then, in the second step, Delphi method is utilized to examine the extent of the influence of each barrier and identify more items. Finally, grounded theory is used to present a conceptual framework for the barriers to research commercialization in humanities. According to the findings, the most important barriers are related to policymaking, legal rights, resources, infrastructure, intrinsic value of humanities, technological nature of humanities, and behavior of the actors.