Chile's National Network of University Technology Transfer Offices (OTL)

Starting in 2011, following a 2009 World Bank diagnostic, Chile's national development agency CORFO (headquartered in Santiago) launched a competitive programme to create and strengthen Technology Transfer and Licensing Offices (OTLs) inside universities and public research centres, aiming to convert scientific output into patents, licences and spin-off companies.
Through eight funding rounds to 2020, CORFO supported 32 OTLs, of which 23 remained active at the time of a 2021 independent evaluation commissioned by Chile's Ministry of Science. That evaluation documented 219 concrete technology-transfer cases and found real institutional maturation, but also structural weaknesses: only 39% of OTLs were rated efficient under a data-envelopment analysis, and average annual licensing income (USD 33,451 per institution) was roughly a third of Ireland's comparable benchmark.
A parallel OECD case study corroborates the trajectory, recording 220 invention disclosures and 66 new patent applications generated between 2012 and 2014, while noting that technology portfolios have not always attracted company uptake and that some OTLs suffered from excessive centralisation. As of the most recent published evaluation (2021), the network's long-term financial sustainability remains dependent on discontinuous public funding — a caution this entry preserves rather than smooths over.

Read the full analysis: https://www.minciencia.gob.cl/uploads/filer_public/75/16/7516682b-a01e-4157-986c-fd6ebeab31dd/presentacion_evaluacion_otl_publicacion.pdf