Elsevier

Research Policy

Volume 29, Issue 2, February 2000, Pages 313-330
Research Policy

The future of the university and the university of the future: evolution of ivory tower to entrepreneurial paradigm

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0048-7333(99)00069-4Get rights and content

Abstract

This article examines recent developments in the role of the university in increasingly knowledge-based societies. Deploying the triple helix model (of academic–industry–government relations) recently developed elsewhere an emergent entrepreneurial paradigm is outlined in which the university plays an enhanced role in technological innovation. Governments encourage this academic transition as an economic development strategy that also reflects changes in the relationship between knowledge producers and users. It appears that the `entrepreneurial university' is a global phenomenon with an isomorphic developmental path, despite different starting points and modes of expression.

Section snippets

Introduction: back to the future

There is empirical evidence that identifying, creating and commercializing intellectual property have become institutional objectives in various academic systems. Coming from different academic and national traditions, the university appears to be arriving at a common entrepreneurial format in the late 20th century. The entrepreneurial university encompasses a `third-mission' of economic development in addition to research and teaching, though the precise shape this takes might vary such that

The triple helix

One model through which we can interpret these changes is that of the `triple-helix' (Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff, 1999). A triple helix of university–industry–government relations transcends previous models of institutional relationships, whether laissez-faire or socialist, in which either the economy or polity predominated, with the knowledge sector playing a subsidiary role. The triple helix model attempts to account for a new configuration of institutional forces emerging within innovation

The entrepreneurial academic paradigm

The effect of the four (inter-related) processes has been to encourage the emergence of an entrepreneurial culture within academia. Within the US, the academic scene has been, “…characterized by decentralization, market competition, and institutional pluralism” (Davis and Diamond, 1997). Rather than being encapsulated within a special class of universities that have special interests in applied research or professional disciplines, the introduction of entrepreneurialism into the academic scene

The mutual influence of institutional spheres

US universities have undergone two major transformations in the past century. We have elsewhere discussed the impetuses to the first academic revolution, an internal transformation of the university in the US in particular the effect of paucity of research funds in the mid-19th century in the context of the emergence of universities imbued with the research ideal (Etzkowitz, 2000). Under stringent financial conditions academics either had to give up their research plans or pursue

Evolution of ivory tower to entrepreneurial paradigm

The developments sketched out above suggest that Schumpeter's model of the entrepreneur has been creatively extended beyond the sphere of business into education and government. It has also expanded from the individual to the collectivity. Indeed, Schumpeter himself adumbrated this latter thesis in his discussion of the historic role of the US Department of Agriculture as `public entrepreneur', instigating innovation among farmers (Schumpeter, 1949).

Nevertheless, we should not underestimate the

Conclusion: the future of the university and the university of the future

The comparative evidence summarized in this paper suggest that a pattern of transformation toward an entrepreneurial university is emerging, from different bases, in the US, Latin America, Europe and Asia. At least two major trends can be identified that affect the future role of the entrepreneurial university: one is the shift to ever greater dependence of the economy on knowledge production (Stehr, 1994) and, the second, the attempt to identify and guide future trends in knowledge production

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