Technological surveillance model applied to the management of a health-related research group

Abstract

Introduction. The steady dynamics of science, technology and innovation plus the volume of information that these subjects have, represent a challenge to the research groups endeavor and to the commitment of the later ones to be knowledge developing units that give significant outputs to its social and academic settings. Therefore, there must be a planning alternative that supports the decisionmaking processes in order to give it a better knowledge founding, to reduce the possible risks and to think ahead the possible changes. This alternative must be supported by an organized, selective and systematic procedure, such as the technological surveillance. Objective. To create a descriptive literature review regarding technological surveillance and a proposal for the technological surveillance method applied to the management of scientific activity of the Estudio Genetico de Enfermedades Complejas (EGEC – Genetic Study for Complex Diseases) research group. Methodology. Descriptive literature review. The following academic databases were consulted: Medline, SciELO, Ebsco e IEEE and Google Scholar search engine. The combination of keywords used when consulting the academic databases, was “vigilancia tecnológica/technological surveillance”, “salud/health”, “enfermedad/disease”, “ejemplos en salud”, “universidad” and “investigación”. Articles of the last five years are included, while articles that only had to deal with the results dissemination of technological surveillance exercises, were excluded. Based on the literature review analysis of results, a technological surveillance model is proposed which its objective is to manage the EGEC research group’s scientific activities. In order to do so, a stages, inputs and funds diagrams that integrated the surveillance model, were created. Thus, the already mentioned diagrams included a cancer pilot test as a validation strategy, and with the test results, the model was subjected to additional adjustments. Results. The Spanish standard UNE 166006:2011 created by the Spanish Association for Standarization and Certification (AENOR), was taken as an international reference whilst the program España y sus Regiones Intercambian Conocimiento con Antioquia (ERICA) and the methodology for technological surveillance Innovaciones a partir de la Vigilancia Tecnológica (InnoViTech), were taken as national referents. Additionally, conceptual stages, good practices for processes execution and defined budget for the development of technological surveillance, are established. The main components for the proposed model include needs identification, plus the planning, collection, auditing, analysis, documentation, and information spreading processes. Conclusions. The proposed model works as a foundation for developing a knowledge management strategy of a research group. Also, the model highlights the importance of climbing towards the usage of competitive intelligence systems within itself. [CarrilloZambrano E, Páez-Leal MC, Suárez JM, Luna-González ML. Technological surveillance model applied to the management of a health-related research group. MedUNAB. 2018;21(1):84-99. doi: 10.29375/01237047.2746].