Valley of Death (VoD) is the name that is given to a gap that hinders the successful completion of Research, Development, and Innovation (R&D&I) projects, preventing them from entering into the stages of new product development, start-up, and commercialization. The aim of this article is to analyze the factors that come into play in the VoD of a group of R&D&I projects from different higher education institutions located in El Valle de Aburrá, Colombia. Given the complexity involved in the study of VoD in the field of R&D&I projects, we carried out a polar case study, since it provides information about VoD in specific projects, in order to provide recommendations for the phenomenon in general. The analysis was carried out from a qualitative approach, inductive and phenomenological in nature, studying six factors involved in the formation of the VoD: human team, competencies and roles, knowledge of the dimensions, networking, financing and risk perception, institutions, and mental models. It was found that the projects that have not yet overcome VoD, usually experience institutional difficulties (rules of the game) and mental modeling difficulties (representations of what should be done), as well as weaknesses in the construction of working networks. In the projects that did overcome the VoD, the factors related to human talent capacity building, alliances, and knowledge of the dimensions predominate as resolved.
