**5. Know hub bridge program**

As previously mentioned, Know Hub Chile is deploying its efforts to transfer Chilean technologies through various mechanisms, such as the creation of programs to reduce the gaps that prevent technologies from reaching the national and international markets effectively.

In this sense, and as part of KH's mapping of the national innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem, it was observed that there is a lack of integration and cohesion between the different funding sources for R&D and innovation, both public and private. This means that a significant number of technologies in which resources and time have been invested do not manage to overcome the "valley of death" and fail to reach the market.

The "valley of death" concept was initially applied in the field of entrepreneurship by Sthepan Markham (2002), describing the inability of a company to maintain a sustainable business model [16]. This is also a metaphorical concept used to describe the gap between academic-based innovations and their commercial applications in the market. More specifically, the "valley of death" refers directly to the difficulty of maturing TRL 6 to 8 technologies through their demonstration and validation stage due to a series of barriers that prevent them from reaching the market. Among the barriers are high costs associated to carry out demonstration and validation tests, low capital investment, difficulties to obtain certifications, among others. Overcoming the "valley of death" is one of the most expensive stages in the development of an innovation [17]. In the specific case of Chile, an additional barrier is the industry's reticence to technological risk, avoiding innovations to reach the value chain of industries as mining, salmon farming, forestry.

In the specific case of Know Hub Chile's partners, out of more than 120 technologies evaluated by the foundation, 52% have a TRL 4 or lower and more than 65% do not have a commercial partner to support their transfer to the market. These figures are a true reflection of what has been seen in the national innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem.

In order to improve the transfer chances of the portfolio by increasing their value and mitigating technological risks for the industry, Know Hub Chile has designed Know Hub Bridge. This program promotes the creation of favorable conditions for the maturation and introduction of new technological products or services in the market. Also, the initiative contributes to the development of scientific and technological based companies (STBCs) or technology-based companies (TBCs), by the investment of third parties in them or by licensing the technologies directly to the industry.

To this end, Know Hub conducts a review of other existing programs to formulate its own program.

In this regard, the "Horizon 2020" program of the European Union (EU) specifically of the European Commission- stands out for implementing the "Innovation Union" strategy. This initiative seeks to create an open environment for innovation that facilitates the conversion of great ideas into products and services that boost EU economy and create jobs. Horizon 2020/Innovation Union has a strong focus on the market [18].

One of the instruments within "Horizon 2020" focuses on small and mediumsize enterprises (SMEs) by supporting the technology development, helping to leverage capital for technology development and commercialization, mitigating technological risk and accelerating technology arrival to the market. Since its implementation in 2014, this instrument has managed to raise around USD 3.6 billion of private investment, investing a total of USD 1.5 billion, which means that for every dollar of public money invested, is generated USD 2.83 of private investment. This amount has been increasing over time. They have also supported more than 4,500 SMEs and are expected to reach 6,000 by 2021 [19].

Another initiative is The Research Council of Norways's programme on Commercializing R&D results (FORNY2020), which is a Proof-of-Concept Funding that supports testing, scaling-up and the continuation of research projects to facilitate the commercialization of research results carried out in public research institutions [20].

Finally, the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) Science and Technology (S&T) program, has two initiatives, "Advanced Technology Development" (ATD) and the "Advance Component Development and Prototypes" (ACD&P), that support the generation of prototype models and their testing in controlled or real operating conditions, allowing the transition from the laboratory to operational use or even being part of the DOD acquisition processes [21].

All these programs -and many others of the Proof of Concept type- have in common that they finance technologies with a high potential to be transferred (TRL 5–6) or commercialized in short or medium term. These technologies come from different areas and need financing to achieve validation under real conditions, scaling up and market launch. In general, funding ranges from USD 25 K to USD 100 K. Finally, these programs not only focus on technologies coming from universities or research centers, but also from STBCs.

All these elements gave rise to the Know Hub Bridge program, whose general objective is to improve the transfer opportunities and terms of negotiation of the research results of KH's partners, by reducing the technological risk for potential licensees and/or investors, through the financing of market viability tests. The specific objectives of the program are as follows:


• To increase the number of technological products or services belonging to Know Hub Chile's partners that achieve private leverage in co-investment format.

The Know Hub Bridge program is composed by 3 stages (**Figure 3**):


In general terms, the program consists of supporting the selected teams for a maximum period of 12 months, moving from a TRL 4 to a TRL6.

**Figure 3.** *Stages of know hub bridge program.*
