0.4 Research methodology  (Page 4/7)

e-inform software program was used to create two surveys. The first was a 47 question Likert scale survey to measure the opinions and level of agreement to the survey questions of academic participants of the Texas/UK Collaborative. The second was a 37 question Likert scale survey of a control group of non-participants of the Texas/UK Collaborative initiative. The Likert scaling was chosen as it is widely used scale in survey research.

The e-inform software was also chosen due to the ease of analysis and breakdown of survey respondents and ability to distribute online on a secure server.

In addition to the two surveys conducted on participants and non-participants of the Texas/UK Collaborative initiative, a 21 question Likert scale survey was distributed online to the Nanotechnology Technology Transfer Network a United Kingdom based network of both national and international companies engaged in nanotechnology development. The survey questions focused on the assessment of individual companies strategic needs for competing in emerging nanotechnology market and their strategic view of the importance of innovation.

The results provide a qualitative comparative analysis obtained from data field surveys. The sizes of the samples are presently limited and no attempt has been made to draw any statistical inference on uncertainty at this early stage. However, the data provides a powerful indication of the comparative judgements exercised by the various survey groups. In the fullness of time it would be appropriate to consider an extension of the survey sample, but for the present purposes it was judged to be sufficient to draw comparative conclusions.

The use of semi-structured interviews was chosen due to the fact that they enhance the data that were derived from survey respondents in this study. These were conducted on a random sampling of Texas/UK Collaborative academic participants. This allowed for considerable flexibility about how and when questions were raised, thusly allowing for considerable amount of additional topics to be built in to the responses, inclusive to this, all interviews were transcribed.

Knowledge transfer network (ktn) questionnaire

A knowledge transfer network’s primary mission is to put firms and innovators in contact with the knowledge and funding that they need to bring new products and processes to market (www.ktn.com 2009).

The UK government has set up Knowledge Transfer Networks which are single over-arching national networks in a specific field of technology or business application which brings together people from businesses, universities, research, finance and technology organisations to stimulate innovation through knowledge transfer. They are funded by government, industry and academia bringing together diverse organisations and providing activities and initiatives that promote the exchange of knowledge and the stimulation of innovation in these communities (www.innovateuk.org 2009). These networks have been created to steer the flow of knowledge within, in and out of specific knowledge areas.