I hate TRLs (and you should too)!

There I said it ... and I am not sorry ... but let me explain. TRLs or Technology Readiness Levels are a simple and widely used scheme for classifying the 'maturity' or 'readiness' of a technology. The levels go from 1, the inception of scientific work, to 9, the proven application of a technology. Research is supposedly from levels 1 to 4, development from levels 3 to 6, and so on. TRLs originated in the US defence and aerospace industry but are now increasingly part of the way in which government and industrial organisations talk about 'knowledge transfer'. This is deeply damaging because it bakes-in a wholly erroneous and misguided view of a linear process in which effectively research hands over technology for exploitation. In reality, technology development is a highly incremental, iterative, creative process of mutual engagement in which application can give rise to new research, and further understanding can alter the way in which application takes place. To the extent that TRLs have some limited application it is in complex hardware systems where they originated. To blithely assume that the underlying scheme would map across to software innovation, which has very different characteristics is a mistake. Technology readiness should not be seen as a process of progressive refinement. By separating universities from applied research (as in the creation of intermediate organisations), by separating applied research laboratories from development organisations (as typically in industry) and by separating funding routes (research from technology), TRLs have done significant damage.