Mexican Public Research Centers (PRCs) have become one of the most important actors in technology development for most enterprises they interact with. Nevertheless, knowledge generated and accumulated by PRCs is being underutilized or not utilized at all in the advance of new projects to benefit productive sectors. In this paper we review a number of variables to pinpoint factors that either promote or hinder successful R&D projects; i.e. those transferred to the industry. We conclude that it is feasible to design policies to boost positive factors while preventing or reducing the impact of the negative ones.