Inter-organisational knowledge transfer: building and sustaining the sources of innovation in nuclear safety and security

The current complexity of innovation processes has led to an understanding that the models of innovation have changed from linear model to a model characterised by multiple interactions and complex networks. Within this more multifaceted environment, has emerged a new set of actors, generally termed as intermediaries, performing a variety of tasks in the innovation process. The innovation literature has recognised various important supporting activities performed by intermediaries, by linking and facilitating the movement of information and knowledge between actors within an innovation system, in order to fill information gaps. Complementary, we make the assumption that the intermediary can assume a more central role in the innovation process, performing activities beyond to filling information gaps, since they intervene to create, prioritise, and articulate meaning to practices. Under this argument, this paper explores how intermediaries work in making innovation happen in the Brazilian nuclear safety and security area, demonstrating the influence of intermediary organisations in improving nuclear regulatory activities. We make sense of these processes by analyzing intermediary roles in the recent regulatory activities improvements, specifically those related to the practices involving radiation sources in medicine. Thus, through an empirical case study, this paper examines the issue of intermediation in a wide sense, including strategic activities preformed by intermediaries, associated with accessing, diffusing, coordinating and enabling knowledge activities. (author)