In a knowledge-based economy, regions win when they cultivate vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystems, because these are the settings that attract intellectual and financial capital. Technology transfer, defined here as the translation of research discoveries into commercializable products, is an important component of any region’s innovation economy, a marker not only of a region’s productivity as a knowledge center but also of its capacity for and receptivity to innovation.

Due to the importance of technology transfer to a region’s vitality, the CEO Council for Growth, an initiative of the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce, commissioned a study in 2007 on the Greater Philadelphia region’s performance in technology transfer and commercialization. The report described a region rich in potential, but one suffering a gap between its robust science and technology research assets and its lagging private sector development track record.