This paper taps the strategic management discipline to inform our understanding of technology transfer and innovation (TTI) initiatives. With special focus on the UK Foresight programme it considers the impacts that the resource-based and core competence approaches to strategy can have on understanding the nature and effectiveness of TTI initiatives. It is argued that the alternative perspective generated from viewing Foresight and other TTI initiatives through the lens of strategic management can have benefits for the initiatives themselves, for industry practitioners and for our understanding of strategic management. (Contains 1 table and 3 figures.)