Delivering on the ‘D’ in R&D: Recommendations for Increasing Transfer Outcomes from Developmental Projects

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The Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center (RERC) Program is charged with generating both research knowledge and development products to improve quality of life for people with disabilities. A retrospective case study of 78 recent development projects from 13 RERCs sought evidence of progress from conception through internal prototype completion and out to uptake and use by an external transfer partner. The results showed evidence of progress to a transfer outcome in 25% of the proposed projects. The lack of progress in the majority of cases is attributed to deficiencies in problem selection and operational issues. These issues appear amenable to the models, methods, and metrics of new product development, which are considered to be standard practice in industry yet not widely applied by people trained as academic researchers. Findings suggest that successful development projects require a level of rigor and relevance in development projects equal to that applied to research projects.