Technology Intelligence Systems in Industry and Academic Networks

High technology firms are under many competitive pressures, which necessitates ongoing innovation and new product development. In this chapter, the early stages of the innovation process, where it is unclear which technologies have the potential to prevail and take hold in a sector, are examined. Technology intelligence systems, which support innovation in two contexts, are assessed; firstly, industry networks which are under pressure to produce successive innovations on a commercial basis, and secondly, academic networks which address innovation on a less commercial basis. This chapter outlines three different technology intelligence systems based on industry and academic networks and describes the implications in terms of technology management. The first system is based around industry based R&D centres, the second around trade associations, and the third around academic centres.

Universities’ Role as Catalysts for Venture Creation

Universities are being asked to play an increasingly larger role in communities as catalysts for venture creation. Some universities have embraced taking an active role, often filling gaps in the local entrepreneurial environment, to induce venture creation. This chapter discusses the role the University of Central Florida (UCF) in Orlando, USA, has taken when partnering with local economic development entities in academic to practitioner-based activities. Over the last 12 years, UCF’s Office of Research and Commercialization (UCF ORC) has continuously worked on improving the process of getting ideas from the university laboratories and the community out to the market to help the community grow and flourish. UCF and a growing number of other universities are creating a suite of Entrepreneurial Support Entities (ESEs) that provide entrepreneurial help in all of a company’s development stages. This chapter presents the interactions among the ESEs, with UCF serving as an example to demonstrate the impact a university can have on its surroundings and on the community’s development. There are many examples of such interactions across the US at other universities as well.

Entrepreneurship Education at Mtech, University of Maryland

As universities recognize that an entrepreneurial education is an enabler, entrepreneurship is increasingly recognized as higher education’s ally. Today, more than 5,000 entrepreneurship courses are offered in over 2,000 college and universities in the United States (U.S.) (Kauffman, 2009). Entrepreneurship education is extending beyond its traditional business school offerings to engineering, arts, and sciences schools as educators develop specialized, experiential content most relevant to their student populations. The Maryland Technology Enterprise Institute (Mtech), a unit of the A. James Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland, is a global leader in entrepreneurship education (Barbe, Green, & Chang, 2010). Mtech’s award-winning programs are being replicated throughout the U.S. and abroad to serve entrepreneurial students in pursuit of new ventures. Mtech’s entrepreneurship courses and programs have more than 1,000 student enrollments annually. This chapter introduces Mtech’s approach to entrepreneurship education, defines the inner workings of Mtech’s entrepreneurship education initiatives, and discusses best practices and lessons learned.

Introducing a Science-to-Business Marketing Unit to University Knowledge and Technology Transfer Structures

This chapter addresses two major challenges in academic entrepreneurship. First, rather than continuously questioning and improving the effectiveness and efficiency of their knowledge and technology transfer (KTT) program, universities often get stuck in their day-to-day business. Second, unlike businesses, most research organisations do not base their strategy and operational activities on their research customers’ demands, namely companies, and thus often miss to meet the needs of their market. Starting with a theoretical discussion on university structures and market orientation in KTT, this chapter presents the successful case of Münster University of Applied Sciences (MUAS) in Germany. Separating strategic, operational, and analytical-scientific activities, MUAS established a Science-to-Business Marketing Research Centre (S2BMRC) which conducts various activities to optimise relationships between academia and business based marketing principles. The chapter details the centre’s field of duties, benefits of having such a centre, and success factors in the formation and operation stage, thus giving insight for all those lacking a market-oriented KTT structure.

Regional Innovation System in Lower Silesia

Knowledge Based Economy is the key to realize the Lisbon strategy for Europe on global and regional scale. Wroclaw’s EIT Plus strategy will stimulate knowledge-intensive growth of Wroclaw and the Lower Silesia region by concerted effort of the knowledge triangle stakeholders. The cooperation with the neighbouring regions will contribute to establishing a significant knowledge-based economy region in this part of Central Europe and, consequently, should also lead to strengthening the economic position of Poland. EIT Plus Programme refers to the goals of the visionary EC initiative to establish the European Institute of Innovation and Technology. Initial financing for the EIT Plus Programme of ca 200 Mio. € comes from the EU structural funds for 2008-2014. Several core projects for implementation of the EIT Plus programme have been prepared by a new entity, Wroclaw Research Centre EIT Plus Ltd being a company established in 2008 by the City of Wroclaw, the Lower Silesia Region and Wroclaw universities.

Business Process Modeling

This chapter presents an innovative methodology used by me for teaching a class entitled “Process Management” at the Faculty of Management and Social Communication of the Jagiellonian University. The lecture provides students with insights into the BPM theory and use of a BPM-dedicated IT tool – ADONIS by BOC, a University of Vienna-based spin-off. On the basis of theoretical guidance, as well as desktop and field research (interviews, observations), students are requested to design their own virtual enterprise. Through individual ADONIS-supported project work, they come to understand better the processes management mechanisms, risk assessment and management, and goal attainment. By designing processes relevant for any startup, students learn a key managerial function – planning. By making them aware of the business-inherent risks coming into view in process outputs, it also allows them to prepare themselves for their own market debut.

Critical Review of Academic Entrepreneurship in India

Academic Entrepreneurship in the last three decades has risen to greater heights. There are various reasons, too. India’s education sector has been undergoing sea changes in these decades. Every state has been opening up, and there has been a plethora of institutions established. In the process, India has earned itself a reputation of a brainpower generator. Academic entrepreneurship in India has played a seminal role in accomplishing this status. The chapter aims to provide a critical review of academic entrepreneurship in India. It will give an analysis between different entrepreneurs, demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of education policy based on observations, bring out the factors that have key impact on the growth of academic entrepreneurship, their performance, as well as the best practices are discussed to pave way in understanding the academic entrepreneurship, which is of both theoretical and practical importance for both developed and developing countries.

Framework Entrepreneurship Process

The thematic of entrepreneurship has assumed a great importance in recent times and is regarded by the governments of all countries as a lever for economic and social development of nations. Entrepreneurship is generally recognized by the process that leads to the creation of companies, and consequently, creates wealth and employment. In their genesis, entrepreneurial ventures, emerged mainly as small business, associated with creative ideas or innovative approaches implemented in most situations, using empirical processes, without major concerns with the scientific rigor that can also contribute in a sustainable way to add value to these business initiatives. In this way, together with the empirical component, resulting from the business opportunity perception by promoter, the process of setting up a business, commonly known as entrepreneurship, should follow a methodology and make use of tools and techniques best suited to each stage of the process. The perspective proposed, Framework Entrepreneurship Process, intends to position itself as a guide for business creation, which took as its starting point a particular idea with potential business leads in a systematic process of transforming it into a successful company. This framework intends to provide an integrated view of the whole process of setting up a company, while it indexes each of the different stages of the process, a set of techniques and tools, perfectly validated in scientific contexts.

Creating and Managing an Innovation Ecosystem

Research reveals that Innovation ecosystem model successfully focuses on value creation for customers and other stakeholders in the ecosystem. The elements in the ecosystem adapt to the environmental changes and reconfigure based on the knowledge base created. The use of ICT platforms has added critical value and novelties for today’s innovation ecosystem. Innovation ecosystem leads to knowledge creation and dissemination. This also involves human capital development and opportunity recognition. The co-incubation model of Higher Educational Institutes (HEIs) with industries plays an important role for fostering entrepreneurship through ideation- incubation –enterprise creation bringing the benefits to all levels of the society. HEIs and industry collaboration generated an Education-Enterprise (E-E) model. IIT Kharagpur utilized the E-E model to support grass root level entrepreneurs for enterprise creation. This leads to the evolution of EE model. IIT Kharagpur focuses on creation of business solutions through local entrepreneurs through global collaboration in the education, environment, energy, and health domain. Innovation ecosystem creation and management face great challenge due to the complexities in growing economy. This chapter represents live cases dealing with challenges of creation and managing of innovation ecosystem.

Formal Technology Transfer in Context

Collaboration between science and industry and the technology transfer activities of universities have been argued to be crucial in the development and sustainability of a competitive knowledge-based economy. Previous studies have mainly focused on indicators such as patents, license income and spin-offs to measure technology transfer activities. However patenting, licenses, and spin-off creation are argued to be only a small part of the technology transfer activities conducted at universities and have a smaller impact than traditional contract research. Very few studies systematically address the importance of contract research in general and service delivery in particular. This chapter addresses this gap by looking in concert and contextualised at the importance of contract research activities, patenting, and spin-off generation of public universities in a particular European region.