Portraying the New: Communication Between University Innovators and Potential Users

Abstract

How do academics communicate their research to external constituents? As U.S. research universities seek to emphasize knowledge application through outreach, answers to this question increase in importance. This article describes an exploratory analysis of conversations between and perceptions of (1) nine university researchers investigating hazardous waste remediation and (2) sets of environmental consulting engineers, state government regulators, and industrial scientists. Implications for two types of outreach—university-based technology transfer and diffusion of innovations—are discussed.