From University research to implementation and commercialization of innovations - a comparative study.

Global recessions and structural economic shifts mean that governments are increasingly looking to universities to contribute to entrepreneurial activity through their "third mission" - to stimulate economic activity. Through an international and comparative approach, this project examines how universities develop entrepreneurially and how they contribute to innovation given the social and institutional environment in which they are a part. The findings of this project fall into two categories: 1) research-based companies and 2) entrepreneurship education. 1) A study of eight establishment processes from universities in Norway and the United Kingdom shows that the academic community at the departmental level can have relative high importance for the establishment and development of research-based companies and that this should be taken into account in the development of policies and instruments. Another study shows how research-based businesses must achieve a certain threshold of legitimacy when they introduce new technology in the market. In this process, they must balance between technological and relational fit for successful commercialization. 2) The project use new theoretical perspectives and develops new empirical measure of how students perceive university context and how this affects tests students` startup intentions and attitudes. The results of a survey of 136 entrepreneurship students documents a strong and direct relationship. The project also examines how counterfactual thinking, cognitive structures and linguistic risk parameters affect students risk perception and decision-making. Further how team conflicts can have a positive learning outcome in entrepreneurial education. Overall, the project has clear implications for how universities can enhance facilitation of commercializing research and improve entrepreneurship education. This is followed up in a large comparative study of ten universities in different regions of Norway, Sweden, Finland, UK and USA shows that an effective entrepreneurial architecture for the third mission is a mutual dependency between culture, leadership, networking, strategy and structure. The development of such an architecture must be in accordance with normative and cognitive - cultural attitudes to entrepreneurship at the university - and the department level, and the surrounding region. Integration of research, education and third mission is a very challenging task for universities. It requires a long-term commitment to creating sustainable change and financing policy with long-term goals. Student-based interventions provide high legitimacy in building a entrepreneurially university, as it constitutitutes the core of the university role in society.

The proposal adresses the thematic area "Norwegian reserach and innovation policy in meeting the global structural changes of research" Theoretically it addresses both a structural perspective through focus on institutional framework, transaction costs a nd organizational theory, but also an agent perspective through education, learning and perception. The project is organized into three workpackages dealing with a respective research question. Further, a research model is designed and the methodology is described. Both statistical analyses (quantitative methods) and process based approach (qualitative) will be used.This project has obvious implications for entrepreneurship and innovation in Norway which has modest results in academic innovation. With th i project we aim to contribute to our understanding of the main factors leading to successful implementation of research based innovation.