Academic Entrepreneurship in Post-transition Country—Case Study of Croatia

Abstract

Entering the European Union, Croatian universities have become a part of the big European market and society. Croatia as one of the newest EU members has been facing many challenges, and one of them has been the development of the higher education sector. In this paper, we aim to explore the possibilities for academic entrepreneurship in Croatia and investigate the barriers which hinder university-industry collaboration. The study adopted the qualitative case study approach, and it was conducted through in-depth interviews with respondents from the Technology Transfer Office (TTO) at the University of Split. Research results indicate that Croatia is only beginning to develop its academic entrepreneurship, having only a short history of entrepreneurship education at all levels of education. Furthermore, supporting institutions for university-industry collaboration, such as the surveyed TTO, were established only in the last decade and most of the potential partners from academia and industry are still not familiar with different possibilities of the collaboration. Our study also shows that specific contextual factors, such as high bureaucracy and administrative barriers, act as inhibiting factors to further development of academic entrepreneurship.