TY - JOUR
T1 - Breaking the Ivory Tower
T2 - Academic entrepreneurship in the life sciences in UK and Germany
AU - Haeussler, Carolin
AU - Colyvas, Jeannette A.
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank David Figlio, Dietmar Harhoff, Elisabeth Mueller, Lars Ullerich, Woody Powell, Henry Sauermann, the editors of the special issue and the two anonymous referees for comments. Financial support from the German Research Foundation (SFB TR 15) and the Munich Center for Health Sciences to C. Haeussler and the Stanford-Columbia Consortium for Biomedical Innovation for J. Colyvas is gratefully acknowledged.
PY - 2011/2
Y1 - 2011/2
N2 - We examine engagement in commercial activities (consulting, patenting, and founding) among more than 2200 German and UK life scientists. We test hypotheses that include attributes of individuals, their material and social resources, and perceptions about values and reputation. We find that characteristics reflecting professional security, advantage and productivity are strong predictors for a greater breadth of participation in academic entrepreneurship, but not for all forms of technology transfer that we are able to test. For such academics, science and commerce go hand in hand, as they are best poised to straddle the boundary between industry and academy. We find strong support, however, that scientists perceive the value of patenting differently, and the level of reputational importance placed on scientific compared to commercial achievements matters in shaping commercial involvement.
AB - We examine engagement in commercial activities (consulting, patenting, and founding) among more than 2200 German and UK life scientists. We test hypotheses that include attributes of individuals, their material and social resources, and perceptions about values and reputation. We find that characteristics reflecting professional security, advantage and productivity are strong predictors for a greater breadth of participation in academic entrepreneurship, but not for all forms of technology transfer that we are able to test. For such academics, science and commerce go hand in hand, as they are best poised to straddle the boundary between industry and academy. We find strong support, however, that scientists perceive the value of patenting differently, and the level of reputational importance placed on scientific compared to commercial achievements matters in shaping commercial involvement.
KW - Academic entrepreneurship
KW - Consulting
KW - Founding
KW - Life sciences
KW - Patenting
KW - Technology transfer
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U2 - 10.1016/j.respol.2010.09.012
DO - 10.1016/j.respol.2010.09.012
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:78650701408
VL - 40
SP - 41
EP - 54
JO - Research Policy
JF - Research Policy
SN - 0048-7333
IS - 1
ER -