Open Access

Hendrik Berghäuser, Michael Hoelscher, Philipp Komaromi, Christopher Stolz, Tabea Krauter, Benjamin Butz, Thea Buchholz, Ulrich Schmoch

• In recent years, the understanding of academic knowledge transfer (AKT) has changed consi-derably. Starting from a narrow, rather unidirectional and technology-centered understand-ing, a broader and reciprocal understanding of transfer has come to the fore, which also con-siders exchange relationships with other social actors that are often more implicit and diffi-cult to measure. The expanded understanding of transfer is intended to capture the societal contribution of scientific institutions in a holistic manner. The aim of this article is therefore to first sharpen the concept of AKT and to locate it in the international discourse. This then forms the basis for the development of transfer profiles, considering the dimensions of transfer partners, transfer mechanisms, transfer content, and transfer localisation jointly, in order to be able to comprehensively investigate the orientation and intensity of knowledge transfer empirically on the individual and the organizational level.