Towards An Integrated Technology And Innovation Management

The issues of innovation accompanying measures like technology forecasting, technology assessment, evaluation, technology transfer, and others are discussed frequently but handled more or less separately in practice. The lack of adjustment between these innovation accompanying measures causes a suboptimal result in supporting the innovation process. The development of the nanotechnology funding strategy in Germany which was guided by an integrated approach of technology and innovation management activities is presented in the following article. This approach is discussed as a way to overcome this deficit of insufficient conjunction between innovation accompanying measures. This activity ranges from technological forecasting activities, the definition of application fields and market surveys to early technological assessment activities in different dimensions combined with communication measures. The integrated approach facilitated the early detection of relevant actors of further innovation process as well as possible "show stoppers" and corresponding actions. Herewith, the importance of accompanying innovation measures and their adjustment in research funding of new technologies is underlined.