Coordinating Knowledge Transfer: Translational Research in Three Countries

The speed at which knowledge reaped from biomedical medicine enters medical clinics is quite slow, with leadtimes of more than 20 years from basic science findings until market entry of new drugs and clinical practices. Translational research is an attempt to mainly enhance the cooperation between basic researchers in laboratories and medical doctors in clinics. To this end new forms of institutions and policy instruments are currently being developed. A critical issue for translational research is the question of coordination, both on the levels of science as well as on the level of governance. Norms, rules, incentive structures all are different between researchers from different disciplines, but also institutions governing research. The paper analyses translational research related governance processes, institutions and policy instruments in three European countries, namely Austria, Finland and Germany. Special emphasis will be put on the discussion of coordination problems on the different levels of governance, both political (e.g. EU, national, regional, local) and functional (e.g. ministries, agencies, universities). The leading research questions then are: what are similarities and differences in the governance of TR in Austria, Finland and Germany and how are the respective TR initiatives coordinated in the three countries?