ABSTRACT

Much attention has been given to the so-called third task of the university (OECD 2007a; see also Chapter 10 in this book). Some universities even brand themselves as ‘innovative universities’, highlighting their interactive role with business and society at large. There are external calls for stronger university-society co-operation. In Norway, as in many other countries, part of such efforts has been attempted formalised and organised as technologytransfer office (TTO). In this chapter we ask how a small university in a peripheral region can succeed with institutionalising the TTO function, how should the TTO function be organised, what are the internal barriers in the university for more external co-operation and to what extent this TTO function complements other external roles of the university.