Desired Functions of Innovation Intermediaries for Enhancing Innovational Capacity in Knowledge-Based Firms

Science, technology and innovation domain can be known as one of the most important and strategic issues in Iran, which considered a lot specially in the recent years. National innovation system, as a comprehensive outlook for players of this area and their relationships, can help us improve it. Innovation intermediaries are an important part of NIS which make coordinative and synergic relationships among different players of NIS (governmental bodies, universities, industries and private part), which worked as isolated islands before. This article, begins first by introducing innovation intermediary bodies as an important part of NIS, then it follows by definition, scientific literature and a comprehensive classification of previous researches in this area. Then we will present an overview of innovation intermediary institutions in Iran in three branches of government, university and industry. By doing interviews and using related documents, we gathered necessary data for this research and by using a grounded theory method with Glaserian approach (emergent and spontaneous) and as the innovation of this research we finally introduce corridor of innovation intermediaries and explain functions of each of them. The result, is shown in a diagram according the growth path of knowledge based firms and their related functions of innovation intermediaries in each level of their growth.