Abstract
In recent years, universities and public authorities have increasingly focused on creating USOs (university spin-offs) as a method of transferring research results to society and of achieving the sustainable development sought by European institutions. However, the success of these policies depends on the appeal of creating a USO for academics. The aim of this research was to examine the relative importance of certain factors that may boost academic entrepreneurship and, therefore, to guide public policies. To do this, a qualitative study was carried out among 42 researchers from Spanish universities and research centres to understand their motivations for creating a USO. A quantitative study was then carried out, based on Conjoint Analysis and with a sample of 1726 academics, to identify the relative importance of six conditions that influence their predisposition to become entrepreneurs. This technique is seldom used in the field of entrepreneurship and, to the best of our knowledge, has never been used before to analyse academic entrepreneurship. The results of the study show that personal economic benefit is clearly the factor that heightens the intention to create a USO the most. Research benefit, CV benefit, support programmes, teaching reduction and personal cost are of lesser importance. The study also concludes that there are few differences according to the academic’s profile.
Highlights
Over the last two decades, public research centres and higher education institutions have increased their focus on improving the transfer of their research results to society, especially to the productive system
There are research studies that have shown that this intention increases with experience [21,87] while other studies find the opposite results [46,82,88]. We find studies such as those of Stuart and Ding [82] and Colyvas and Powell [84] that reach the conclusion that professional category is a significant factor in the choice to create an USO, especially with regard to the stability obtained as a result of this and the need to achieve new goals that are different from academic ones, which have already been attained
The results reveal that the condition that motivates Spanish academics to found a USO the most is the personal and economic benefit they obtain
Summary
Over the last two decades, public research centres and higher education institutions have increased their focus on improving the transfer of their research results to society, especially to the productive system. We have begun to hear the term “entrepreneurial universities”, which reflects their concern for contributing towards the sustainable economic development and societal impact [1,2,3,4,5] of their region and country In this sense, one of the most important contributions of USOs is how it helps to create jobs. Smart specialisation is the capacity of regions to devise structural alterations in their economies through innovation, the detection of opportunities and the absorption of resources [6] It is a model of regional development that is based on innovation, derived mainly from the efforts in R&D and the creation of companies in accordance with said discoveries [7,8,9]. Academic entrepreneurs are in a great position to realise the areas of R&D and create companies in the way of smart specialisation, taking advantage of the resources available in their regions
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