The INNOTECH Technical University Innovation Park has different profiles:

1. provides the usual park services for the companies based on its settlement, in this sense operates as a traditional innovation park;
2. utilizes the R&D achievements of the university as a limited liability company, that is the function of a typical technology transfer enterprise;
3. markets the R&D abilities of the university professors, for whom it doesn’t become necessary to establish separate firms, but they can use INNOTECH as their own company.

The INNOTECH can be considered also a spin-off venture in itself, which was released by the university from its own resources to utilize and market the R&D skills in the business life.

We find it important to make a remark on the interpretation of the spin-off venture. Basically we agree with the concise definition given by Smilor et al (1960). According to them the spin-off firms have two fundamental characteristics: the founders of these enterprises - in our case university professors - were earlier employees of the same mother company (organization); and the definitive basic technology of the new venture was developed at this mother company - in this context at the university. We find it also reasonable to take into account the more tinged interpretation of Roberts and Malone (1996): they also attach great importance to the intellectual property holder of the basic technology, the investor of the initial capital and the experienced management team joining the new firm. (Of course, one person is able to perform in more than one functions of the above mentioned ones.) This complex approach was supported by the examinations of Carayannis et al (1998), and by our practical experiences as well.

In our case INNOTECH is a spin-off firm which has already released other spin-off ventures from its own circles - independently or in collaboration with the university - and these enterprises substantially meet the above mentioned spin-off criteria. We do not refer to the formally established firms exclusively. Research and development centers, working groups were taking shape inside the activity of INNOTECH, and these organizations operate now as informal business companies. Though these ventures are not registered as regular firms, in fact they bear all important marks of the individual business units

• in defining their own R&D strategy and the direction of development;
• in the cases of managing methods ad personnel;
• in selecting the members of the working group;
• in creating responsible control over the expenditures and the revenues (e. g. with limits on the overspending), etc.

Consequently these working groups can be regarded stable, development-oriented quasi SMEs. Essential differentiation has to be made between these ventures and the teams: the members of the mentioned groups are working together for years, and on different tasks, unlike with the members of the R&D teams, who are joining to solve one special problem.

This could be realized with the co-operative structure of these “firms” - that is the essence of the INNOTECH-model. This innovation park is not bound exclusively to one special settlement, out exists in the structure of close relationships featured with three main characteristics:

• the interests of every participant are guaranteed to prevail (supported by contracts);
• the operational and co-operative rules are laid down unambiguously;
• these rules are known by all parties.

This is a typical co-operative system, providing sound basis for the structure in which INNOTECH operates for more than ten years. During this time our innovation park delivered a great number of technology to the industry, mainly in the home country, but occasionally overseas too, for example in Australia. The great stability of this model is characterized by the fact that no legal debate has been initiated in this decade.

The structural model of the diffusion of the technologies developed in the university functions on two levels.

On the first level there are the technology ventures, which can be both formally established spin-off firms or development-oriented quasi SMEs. In the latter case the professional and the legal sides are separated from each other: in legal sense the entrepreneur is the INNOTECH Innovation Park Ltd., but the scientific/professional management is in the hands of the university professors, who are working with great sovereignity as subcontractors within the scopes of INNOTECH.

On the second level there is the INNOTECH Innovation Park itself, which can be described as service-converting organization with two profiles:

• innovation park in classic sense (providing the standard services);
• structural park (functions as a co-operative system).

In practice this is realized in the form that INNOTECH purchases services from

• university professors, and from the innovation working groups directed by them with high level of independence;
• the Technical University of Budapest, which provides the innovative environment as well.

Utilizing these achievements the park becomes able to market more complex value added services, considered real “park products” consisting of elements both of its own developments and the purchased “outside” ones. This model is illustrated in Figure 1.

Since the beginning of its activity, the INNOTECH Innovation Park has been striving to develop the park services in the widest possible range, while regularly analyzing the needs of the partners. As a result the proportion of the different elements of the park services was constantly changing in its activity. The initial aim was to create a science park besides the Technical University of Budapest, therefore the attention was focused on the R&D. Nevertheless the business environment required something else, so the scope of the activity of the park was continuously widening, though the results are still realized mainly in the field of technical development ventures, shown in Figure 2. The proportion of R&D considerably decreased (albeit the absolute values registered in this field have been rising too).

Since 1994 we can recognize an unambiguous tendency (see Figure 3.), according to which INNOTECH itself is a spin-off enterprise too: as an entrepreneur the park utilizes the intellectual resources of the university in the business life. Influenced by the operational conditions and the outside needs, the initial science park concept progressed towards a development-oriented business activity. The position of INNOTECH inside the system of different park types is shown in Figure 4.

On 30 August 1782, Emperor Joseph II signed the document that ordered the foundation of the Institutum Geometricum-Hydrotechnicum, starting engineering education within the Royal University in Buda. The Institutum was the legal predecessor and precursor of the present Technical University of Budapest, the first university-level institution for engineering education in the world. The Institutum provided three years of studies and, after a student passed final examinations, granted the title “geometer approbatus”.

Currently more than 100 departments operate within the structure of the 8 faculties. About 1700 researchers and other diploma holders, and also 600 invited lecturers and practical specialists participate in training and research at the University. The technical and administrative staff consists of 470 persons, while the number of students is about 15,000. The University grounds occupy some 280,000 square meters.

Numerous outstanding personalities of the Hungarian technical intelligentsia have studied at the Technical University of Budapest and its predecessors, including theoretical scientists, construction engineers, and practicing engineers. Many became lecturers, training other Hungarian engineers, while others won fame and esteem for their country abroad.

Outstanding scientist of the aerodynamics: Tódor Kármán; of heat engines: Aurél Stodola; one of the inventors of the television: Dénes Mihály; theoretical scientist of the photographic optics: József Petzval and constructor of the Rubic cube: Ernő Rubik graduated from the Technical University of Budapest. World-famous genii of the atomic age: Jenő Wigner, winner of the Nobel Prize in physics; Leo Szilárd and Edward Teller; Dénes Gábor, winner of the Nobel Prize in physics, inventor of the holography were also students of this University, and the list could continue...

Numerous scientists of international reputation worked as professors, at this University like Károly Zipernowszky, one of the Hungarian engineers inventing the transformer; Donát Bánki, inventor of the gas engines and water turbine, János Csonka the inventor of the first carburettor of the world; László Heller, one of the constructor of the world-wide applied power station cooling system known as “Heller-Forgó System”. We find among radar techniques: Zoltán Bay; Alajos Hauszmann who projected and built the House of Parliament, another member of the engineer group inventing the transformer: Ottó Titusz Bláthy; pioneer of the railway electrification: Kálmán Kandó; and Tódor Kármán, Edward Teller and Károly Zipernowszky mentioned already above.

In the technical universities the engineering/technological sciences - and especially their practical aspects - can be taught successfully and effectively only by professors who are participating in creative technical work too. To meet this requirement two basic solutions became familiar in the technical universities. The first way is the spontaneous flow of the working force between the industry and the universities: as a result the personnel who came from the business sector (with scientific ambitions) will have fresh experiences to be presented. The other basic situation is the close institutional co-operation between the universities and the enterprises. In the course of the latter university professors contribute to industrial projects, and the achievements of these become organically incorporated into the educational material. Naturally in the real life this two basic cases occur most frequently together.

Consequently very important works had been concluded in the last decades in the oldest and greatest university of Hungary, the Technical University of Budapest by contractual orders of the industry - in part research, but mainly development. The vast majority of the educational personnel of the university were taking their part in these activities, acquiring the indispensable practical skill for the teaching of the technical sciences.

In addition to these, the last decade brought along two significant changes in the technical universities of Hungary. University professors were getting connected into very large scale projects on some fields (e. g. information technology development and application, microbiological research, development and practical utilization). This process has enforced the close co-operation in the framework of the project organization, and focusing the effectiveness also demanded basic financial, business planning and project controlling knowledge - among the obvious technical expertise. On the longer run this led to the division of labour, natural in the industry, but special in the university. An expert circle came into existence which was able not only to manage the given project but to initiate the industrial co-operation itself as well.

The backing up of the innovation in institutional form began in Hungary at the end of the ‘80s, following the model of the developed countries. One of the most characteristic example of this advancement is INNOTECH itself. The greatest support for the rise of the innovation was given, however, by the appearance of the multinational companies in Hungary. This considerably increased the general quality of work and constantly rose the demand for subcontracting 3 which latter is the driving force in establishing SMEs, the engine of the innovation and the bottom pillar of the daily economy policy.

The above mentioned two conditions equally helped the university professors to utilize their engineering skills and development expertise not only in the university but in the framework of their own ventures too. As was illustrated earlier, INNOTECH is supporting the transfer of knowledge of the university professors in several forms, with the aid of the Technical University of Budapest. The company mentioned in the title of this section has gone through different stages of enterprising while it could be established as an independent firm. The founders of this venture were collaborating in information development projects since the beginning of the ‘80s.

The number of the working group was growing almost every year with a few would-be-doctors. After the foundation of INNOTECH they immediately began to exploit the services of the park designed to promote the innovation, mainly in the fields of elaborating the business plan, financial planning, legal consultation, pre-financing and finally in the establishing of the independent firms.

MATE Rt. (Hungarian Telematics Co.) was founded in 1995, it’s owners are exclusively university experts. The backbone of the firm consists of 19 full-time employees, among the six founder members, who nowadays also teach at the university. The financial guidance of the firm is further on, however, in the hands of INNOTECH, and the park helps in controlling the management from legal and fiscal aspects too. Technical consulting and developing of special information applications are defined as main activities of this enterprise, which is in the position to exploit the accumulated knowledge on information technology, project leading, quality assurance and the inland business environment as well. The revenues of MATE Rt. amounted 32 million HUF (Hungarian forints) in 1996, and 65 million HUF in 1997. The value of contracted orders for this year is exceeding 100 million HUF. The assets of the enterprise were tripled in the last three years.

The driving back of the R&D work inside the INNOTECH was also contributed by the word-wide tightening of financial resources dedicated for this purpose - in the case of Hungary these were even drastically cut during the ‘90s. Among the given circumstances, it is especially important to find effective diffusion channels for the technology R&D work conducted by the university. An opportunity presents itself for an interesting comparison by means of the international survey on the factors of competitiveness, published as the World Competitiveness Report in 1994. The important data from the Hungarian point of view are summarized in Figure 5., to analyze the situation in Hungary compared with the reference base of countries in the same stage of advancement. Regarding the factors evaluated on a scale of 1-8 points, Hungary is in better position in the number of highly educated engineers (1) and skilled workers (2), in the education of natural sciences (3) and generally in the level (4) and the system (5) of the education. Against this the degree of modernization (6), the level of the technologies (7) and the quality of R&D in the key industries (8) is worse than average, as well as the time consumption of the marketing of new products (9) and the efficiency in organizing of the work.

According to this international comparison, the Hungarian enterprises are the weakest on the fields which could be advanced the best way through the innovation park services. All this raises the value of the innovation parks and represents a great challenge also towards the INNOTECH Innovation Park. By international experiences it is obvious that technological strategy/innovation doesn’t belong to the most important aspects of corporate management - as interpreted convincingly by Ryan (1996) on the basis of an Australian examination. In Hungary the innovation is still third class element in this respect, shown by an industrial study of the National Technical Development Committee (1996). To promote the progress in this field it is an important task of the INNOTECH Innovation Park to interpret the successful examples extensively, after the structural development inside. The park has to encourage technical development ventures outside Budapest with greater intensity in order to extend the activity of INNOTECH to the whole country. For this reason we have initiated several nation-wide actions, and we hope that there will be results to be reported next time.

Carayannis, E. G.; Rogers, E. M.; Kuruhara, K. and Allbritton, M. M., 1998. High-technology spin-offs from government R&D laboratories and research universities, Technovation 18, 1-11.

Innovation and competitiveness, 1996. Országos Műszaki Fejlesztési Bizottság.

Ryan, N., 1996. Technology strategy and corporate planning in Australian high-value-added manufacturing firms, Technovation 16, 195-201.

Roberts, E. B. and Malone, D. E., 1996. Policies and structures for spinning off new companies from research and development organization, R&D Management 26, 17-48.

Smilor, R. W., Gibson, D. V. and Dietrich, G. B., 1960. University spin-out companies: Technology start-ups from UT Austin. Journals of Business Venturing 5, 63-76.

World Competitiveness Report 1994, Geneva/Lausanne: IDM/World Economic Forum.