Commercializing emerging technologies for societal impact: how diverging institutional perspectives influence early-stage collaborative dynamics

Universities increasingly collaborate with industry, government, and societal stakeholders to enhance the societal impact of Key Enabling Technologies (KETs). Early collaboration between these stakeholders is crucial but challenging due to the limited information on potential impacts, as highlighted by the Collingridge Dilemma. This study examines how different perceptions and interests of the technology stakeholders influence the capability to collaborate at an early stage of development. We draw our research on the case study of Quantum Key Distribution, a relevant emerging technology for current and prospective cybersecurity threats. We collected rich qualitative data through semi-structured interviews with multi-disciplinary stakeholders, and inductively analysed them to answer our research question. Our findings suggest that differences in temporal perspectives can substantially influence collaboration between university spin-offs and end-users. The engagement with operational stakeholders, usually excluded by existing academic collaborations with industry, can then help mitigate the different interests and perspectives between stakeholders with a short-term temporal perspective and those with a medium- or long-term perspective.