Bridging commercialisation and redevelopment: Jurisdictions and university policy development

Abstract

Universities, as anchor institutions in regional entrepreneurial ecosystems, have embraced university business incubators (UBIs) as part of broader commercialisation programmes nurturing university spin-offs. Yet, by requiring substantial construction or rededication of physical space, UBIs are also part of land redevelopment initiatives, the goals of which often include reshaping or revitalising surrounding communities’ physical and cultural landscapes. The commercialisation literature often overlooks this redevelopment tool role, leading scholars to over-ascribe UBI structure to university commercialisation cultures. Through a case study of two universities in the same region, the article finds that bioscience UBIs act as bridging activities between university research commercialisation and land redevelopment arms. Divergent adoption patterns reflect distinct legal, political and personal relationships with layered political jurisdictions (i.e. each university’s jurisdictional embeddedness), and point to a divide between public and private universities. The work has direct implications for how regions leverage large, place-based assets for regional entrepreneurial development, but also suggests that universities have outsized roles in local – and not just regional – spatial patterns of economic activity.