Key factors in university-to-university knowledge and technology transfer on international student mobility

Abstract

The international circulation of scientists from developing to developed countries can be one of the ways to access advanced knowledge. Similarly, another alternative proposed in this paper is the international student mobility as a way to increase the tacit knowledge asset of a country. Based on this assumption, the purpose of this paper is to approach knowledge and technology transfer having two universities as subjects of study in order to identify the barriers and mechanisms in the transfer within the international student mobility scenario. The paper investigates two groups of students, one from Brazil and another from France, which participated in an international student mobility programme for a period longer than six months. Results show the main barriers and the most effective mechanisms for this category of knowledge and technology transfer. At the end of the paper, we propose a model which has as interfaces two universities as transferor and transferee.