Improving the return on R&D investments

As Chesbrough said: “No organisation (…) can innovate effectively on its own”1Hence,“Companies are redefining how they generate ideas and bring them to the market, leveraging on third-party innovation and opening up their know-how abroad”1.

The opportunities are there, but a new front is opened in the innovation management, which requires a new outward attitude and new skills, in a necessarily international environment.

In 2007, the Chamber of Commerce of Barcelona and LEITAT Technological Center created KIMbcn Foundation, which was born with the aim of stimulating the knowledge economy and promoting Open Innovation. But it was necessary to develop an international organization with a market perspective.

This is our work: Align industry expectations and research and technology centers to explore Open Innovation opportunities

  • Expertise. We have been practicing Open Innovation (Tech Transfer) between industry and research and technological centers since 2007.
  • PULL Philosophy. The driver that guides our activity with RTOs is to respond to the needs of our industrial customers, mostly large multinational companies.
  • 360º vision. We have a technological vision of the processes of acquisition and commercialization of early stage technologies and other assets of IP (know how, patents …), but also of business, financial, legal and IP models …
  • Cross innovation. We have a horizontal knowledge of the market, which allows us to reposition and transfer technologies from one industry to another.
  • Facilitators. We have extensive experience in national and international transfer finance instruments. This allows us to be able to connect public and private instruments.

We have offices in Barcelona, Madrid, Vigo and Santiago de Chile. And we are in The Knowledge Agents Alliance (KAA), an international network of knowledge transfer agents.


KIM, 10 years with you

In 2017 we celebrated the tenth anniversary of our organization. In the following materials we have collected the main milestones of KIM in this decade:

Commemorative infographics (Spanish)

Commemorative video (Spanish)


What is the difference between KIM, KIMbcn and KAA?

KIM is an international company with headquarters in Barcelona, Madrid, Vigo and Santiago de Chile, which seeks to align the expectations of industry and research and technological centers to exploit the opportunities of Open Innovation.

KIMbcn is a public-private foundation based in Barcelona that was born with the aim of stimulating the knowledge economy in Spain and promoting Open Innovation.

KAA is an international alliance of technology transfer agents dedicated to promoting, facilitating, qualifying, extending and consolidating a culture of business focus in the protection and exploitation of R & D results.

1. Chesbrough, Henry W. Everything You Need to Know About Open Innovation, Forbes, March 21, 2011.

Knowledge Innovation Market - KIM