THE GENERATION OF TECHNOLOGY AND THE ROLE OF ACADEMIC RESEARCH

At present, the generation of technology is decisively determined by a close interaction of academic und industrial research. Conventional l inear models of the innovation process reflect this interaction in an insufficient way. More recent approaches with recursive models reflect the innovation process more adequately but only partly help to achiev e a dearer understanding, as they do not permit definite linkages to t he involved actors and a description of the development in time. The m odel suggested in this paper explicitly introduces the actors as well as the time dimension and clearly differentiates between innovation st ages and types of research. The model is illustrated by the example of neural networks, an area with close communication structures between academic and industrial researchers which can be described as technosc ientific community.