Academic entrepreneurship – An academic career advancement opportunity in Central Europe?

Abstract

In the strongly competitive and diversely funded research system of the US it is almost entirely natural that scientists exploit business opportunities stemming from their university research. The synergies between the enterprise and the university are significant not only from the business but also from the academic perspective: ensuring additional funds for the university laboratory, keeping talented students close to the university and demonstrating the inventions’ practical usability can all enhance the researcher’s academic career. In this study, we investigate whether becoming an academic entrepreneur led by the motivations Etzkowitz described is a real opportunity in other institutional settings beyond the US as well. Accordingly, the focus of our investigation was the Hungarian university system. We assumed that its dual (i.e. continental European and Soviet) scientific organizational roots provide an unfavorable environment for ‘classical’ academic entrepreneurship. As part of the research, we made interviews with the founders of companies spun off from large Hungarian research universities and originating from multiple locations including the capital and three university cities. We found that the ‘classical’ academic entrepreneur appears even within this environment, but specific factors induce alternative development paths as well. ‘Classical’ academic entrepreneurs are usually well-established and internationally recognized scientists with a broad professional network that also includes academic entrepreneurial role models. Firm formation is also supported by academic and business contacts and favorable departmental norms. On the other hand, the lack of supporting institutional environment or of adequate business knowledge, together with the scarcity of financial resources, results in the appearance of ‘impeded’ academic entrepreneurs whose business activity does not enrich the university’s scientific life. On the other hand, product-related specificities and the lack of academic entrepreneurial role models result in the evolution of ‘unbalanced’ academic entrepreneurs and firms with limited integration into the university research framework. Furthermore, business-academia synergies can also become limited when university policies enforce scientists to become business founders who then rather turn into so-called ‘externally motivated’ than ‘classical’ academic entrepreneurs.