Check our article on “TRL for animal health” that can contribute to new innovations in animal health.

The Technology Readiness Level (TRL) is a popular innovation policy instrument to monitor the maturity of upcoming new technologies in publicly funded research projects. However, the definition of the TRLs are very generic which hampers concrete interpretation and application. Here, we aligned innovation pipeline stages as used in the animal health industry with the TRL scale, resulting in TRL for animal health (TRLAH).

Nowadays, more public funding opportunities, both at the level of the EU as by national and regional funders, are offered to stimulate collaboration between academia and industry as they aim at higher TRL. However, the translation of public research results into industrial and societal innovation is often hindered by different interpretations of the level of maturity of the technology between academia and industry.

TRLAH will be very useful to facilitate the transfer of new technologies from research institutes/academia to private companies, either to animal health companies or to new spin-offs/start-ups.

The contribution of authors of both academia and industry to this article shows that both attach much importance to the TRLAH as they will offer a major contribution to a clear framework for collaboration and innovation.