It represents how far a technology is from being ready for use in its intended operational environment. The maturity level is assessed through a scale of 9 evolutionary stages, from an initial stage of curiosity-driven research to a final stage of fully developed and tested innovation, launched as a new product and/or service in the respective market. It is profitably used to compare different technologies on the basis of their positioning in the above scale; and to monitor the progress of a single technology across time along the pathway from the initial to the final stages.
Source: Bruno et al. 2020