Two different lines of evidence suggest 20 years is a good rule of thumb for how long it takes to go from science to technology: statistical correlations between R&D and productivity, and citations between patents and scientific articles.
This podcast is an audio read through of the (initial version of the) article How long does it take to go from science to technology?, published in New Things Under the Sun.
Articles mentioned:
Adams, James D. 1990. Fundamental stocks of knowledge and productivity growth. Journal of Political Economy 98(4): 673-702. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2937764
Baldos, Uris Lantz, Frederi G. Viens, Thomas W. Hertel, and Keith O. Fuglie. 2018. R&D spending, knowledge capital, and agricultural productivity growth: a Bayesian approach. American Journal of Agricultural Economics 101(1): 291-310. https://doi.org/10.1093/ajae/aay039
Marx, Matt, and Aaron Fuegi. 2020. Reliance on science: Worldwide front-page patent citations to scientific articles. Strategic Management Journal 41(9): 1572-1594. https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.3145
Marx, Matt, and Aaron Fuegi. 2020. Reliance on science by inventors: hybrid extraction of in-text patent-to-article citations. NBER Working Paper 27987. https://ssrn.com/abstract=3718899
Arora, Ashish, Sharon Belenzon, and Lia Sheer. 2017. Back to basics: why do firms invest in research? NBER Working Paper 23187. https://ssrn.com/abstract=2920404
Watzinger, Martin, and Monika Schnitzer. 2019. Standing on the Shoulders of Science. CEPR Discussion Paper No. DP13766. https://ssrn.com/abstract=3401853
Ahmadpoor, Mohammad, and Benjamin F. Jones. 2017. The Dual Frontier: Patented inventions and prior scientific advance. Science357(6351): 583-587. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aam9527