Abstract
Valorization of knowledge produced in research units has been a major challenge for research universities in contemporary societies. The prevailing forces have led these institutions to develop a “third mission”, the facilitation of technology transfer and activity in an entrepreneurial paradigm. Effective management of challenges encountered in the development of academic entrepreneurship and the associated valorization of knowledge produced by universities are major factors to bridge the gap between research and innovation in Europe.The need to improve the existing institutional knowledge valorization processes, concerning entrepreneurship and business development and the processes required were discussed.A case study was designed to describe the institutional knowledge valorization process in a food science and technology research unit and a related incubator, during a five year evaluation period that ended in 2012.The knowledge valorization processes benefited from the adoption of a structured framework methodology that led to ideas and teams from a business model generation to client development, in parallel, when possible, with an agile product/service development.Although academic entrepreneurship engagement could be improved, this case study demonstrated that stronger skills development was needed to enable the researcher to be more aware of business development fundamentals and therefore contribute to research decisions and the valorisation of individual and institutional knowledge assets. It was noted that the timing for involvement of companies in the research projects or programs varied with the nature of the research.
Highlights
Valorization of knowledge produced in research units has been a major challenge for research universities in contemporary societies
When a business idea associated with the exploitation of knowledge already has a patent submitted for intellectual property (IP) rights protection, the university option was to collaborate with an institutional partner that offers a structured and financed pathway for knowledge valorisation, if the project was considered to be “high tech-high growth”
Nor the research center, have any contribution to the followed methodology. This option, attracted researchers but high levels of drop-outs were reported in different phases of the pathway and ended with long processes that did not produce numerous projects(it took more than five years for one project to became a start-up in 2013, with a risk capital investment of 1.4 Million Euro)
Summary
Valorization of knowledge produced in research units has been a major challenge for research universities in contemporary societies. Entrepreneurship can be considered as the process of creating new companies and as the process of new business development in an existing organizational context It has been considered by academia as a useful technology transfer tool. The complexity associated with the various components of a business plan, can become, a barrier to the project development, and a barrier to the investment in intellectual work to structure business ideas based on a specific knowledge (Osterwalder & Pigneur, 2010). This context systematically raises the question regarding which methodological tools should be applied to transform an idea into a business, autonomously in a team, supported by local or national structures and programs. This study was designed to identify contributions required to improve the academic knowledge valorization process
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