Training Needs Analysis results and data

The Health-2-Market consortium conducted Training Needs Analysis (TNA) in order to adequately orient the support activities of the project towards fostering the development of an innovation and entrepreneurial mindset amongst health/life science researchers. The principal objective of the analysis was to determine the actual knowledge and skills of the researchers in terms of commercial exploitation of research results as well as to shed ample light on their training needs in order to overcome their knowledge/skills gap and any relevant perceived obstacles and risks.

The TNA was built upon 4 complementary sources of information:

• A bibliographic analysis of 22 relevant documents / studies.
• In-depth, phone / face-to-face interviews with 26 selected experts (including researchers, entrepreneurs, technology transfer officers, etc.).
• An online survey targeted at Health / Life Sciences researchers who have been involved in EU projects, which collected 637 completed responses.
• Two roundtable discussions which brought together experts in Health / Life Sciences research and commercialisation support (including researchers, entrepreneurs, technology transfer officers, Health National Contact Points (NCPs), Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) experts, etc.).

The combination of the abovementioned sources in a comprehensive approach to analyse the training needs of Health / Life Sciences researchers produced a wealth of valuable data and meaningful findings which were summarised in a dedicated report that served as a solid basis for the design and specification of the Health-2- Market training offer, focusing on the different target groups and their needs.

Indeed, the analysis concluded on these main needs in order to tackle the lack of knowledge of health researchers regarding entrepreneurship/ utilisation of research results:

• Financial and market analysis aspects
• Business Plan construction
• Intellectual Property Rights (for less experienced target groups)
• Mentoring
• Networking and contacts to experts (venture capitalists, IPR experts, etc.)
• Practical training

The Training Needs Analysis concluded that an important training element should be “to change the mind-set” of the researchers in order to make them perceptive to commercial exploitation activities and to give them an “outcome orientation” with regards to financial aspects.

The full Training Needs Analysis report can be found via the following link:

Training_Needs_Analysis_public.pdf
(487 downloads so far)

In order to allow other specialists to benefit from these project’s results, and following the consultation and encouragement of the European Commission, open access has been provided to the anonymous statistical data of Training Need Analysis, via Zenodo, the repository of OpenAIRE managed by CERN:

• HEALTH-2-MARKET Dataset is available here;
• HEALTH-2-MARKET survey questionnaire is available here.