Evaluating R&D with “First Bounce–Last Bounce” Framework

OVERVIEW:One of the main challenges for technology-driven industries is to rapidly transform R&D results into revenues. However, R&D activities are complex and unstructured phenomena that typically involve technical, managerial and social issues simultaneously. The situation is further complicated in the Space context due to the long time to market, often exceeding ten years. Consequently, a new R&D evaluation framework has been proposed to address these issues. The framework is based on three elements: the analysis of two crucial stages of the product development process, namely, the research stage at the beginning and the commercialization stage at the end; and the concept of “enabling factors” to link the commercialization to the results of the R&D activities.