The paper describes the preliminary outcomes of the Italian technology transfer (TT) policy instrument named RIDITT: Italian network for innovation and technology transfer to enterprises. As a first step some of the key and most recent theoretical and empirical works on TT policy are presented, in the wider framework of R&D public support, as well as a brief review of the trends in TT policies at national level. The paper then focuses on the results of two surveys, respectively on the innovation & TT centres operating in Italy, and on the most effective technologies available from public research for SME innovation. Both the analyses showed a populated and fast evolving system, even if affected by some weaknesses mainly related to the players’ undersizing and to the lack of a general awareness on TT potential, on the research as well as on the industrial side. The surveys results were finally used to design a tailored scheme to promote research-industry cooperation. The early evidence from its application shows that a specific TT policy can afford those weaknesses, in the Italian case, but a deeper insight on the actual TT mechanism and the availability of tested impact evaluation methodologies and metrics, are needed.