DIRECT ASSOCIATIONS OF THE TERMINOLOGY OF KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER – DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES (SSH) AND OTHER SCIENTIFIC DISCIPLINES

Knowledge transfer from universities to practical fields, policy, economy, and civil society is an issue of high relevance. However, the term itself is hardly used in a consistent way and only little research exists that elucidates the understanding of the phrase. To fill this research gap, we conducted a qualitative online study among Austrian university researchers. 283 participants from 18 universities were asked for a definition of university knowledge transfer and associated keywords. Qualitative Content Analysis revealed nine main categories of components: 'Science-to-public and science communication', 'science-to-science', 'science-to-professionals', 'education and teaching', 'exchange and mutual communication', 'knowledge transfer to economy and industry', 'knowledge transfer to people outside academic environments (not further specified)', 'moral obligations' and 'knowledge transfer to politicians and stakeholders'. Additionally, specific examples were mentioned and the complexity of the term was emphasized. Differences between social sciences and humanities (SSH) and other scientific disciplines could be detected in five categories.