In the context of  the “Valorisation of Research “, the Third Mission has the objective of promoting economic growth, by means of the transformation of the knowledge produced by research into knowledge useful for production purposes, from the management of intellectual property to the creation of businesses, from research on behalf of third parties – in particular deriving from research-industry relationships – to the management of intermediation and support structures.

Technology transfer activities are encouraged in order to develop collaboration between the university sector and that of public and private research and encourage university participation in technological and industrial clusters that are priority for the country’s competitiveness, through the joint definition of the objectives to be pursued and the creation of suitable professional figures.

The Scuola Normale is a member of the NetVal network, the Network for the Valorisation of University Research and has set up (together with the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, the IMT Alti Studi di Lucca and the IUSS of Pavia) JoTTO, a joint office for technology transfer. For more information, see the Scuola’s institutional website, Trasferimento Tecnologico 

Finally, it should be noted that in 2018 the Scuola applied, together with the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna of Pisa, to participate in HEInnovate, an initiative of the European Commission, of the DG for Education and Culture and the OECD LEED Forum , supported by a group of six independent experts, to provide useful information about the entrepreneurial and innovative nature of the higher education environment of the Scuole. HEInnovate experts visited the two Scuole in December 2018: the distinctive aspects of each were presented separately, while the shared activities related to technology transfer were presented jointly. The results of the work carried out are contained in the final report “Supporting Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Higher Education in Italy”.