Incubators as catalyst of academic spin-offs: evidence from the Israeli case-study (342)

Theme Track: Innovation and New Technologies - Knowledge and Educational Infrastructure

Author:
Pace, Giuseppe

There is already a respectable body of evidence that connect industrial innovation with knowledge spill-overs from academic research, and many suggest that university research units can play a helpful role in small firm innovation, but very few consider their role in the making of 'knowledge and innovation systems', based on a close network relationships with SMEs that promotes innovative spin-offs. In addition, the theory does not distinguish sufficiently between different kinds of forces that promote the spatial concentration of related activities. Dealing with the processes of innovation generation and diffusion, this paper explores the role of development agencies, i.e. of incubators, in order to create and to enable cooperative behaviours between academic research and small and medium enterprises.

Through a survey of the links among Israeli technological incubators, universities and other institutions, this paper defines specific behaviours and aims at identifying their interdependence in stimulating innovative dynamics. This survey also covers private research funding, the sale of patents to industry by universities as well as academic spin-offs. It also investigates the role of proximity and whether 'distance networks' can be generated on a regional scale. Through questionnaires and interviews with managers and employees, the paper put in evidence 'formal' and 'informal' interdependences between universities and incubators. In particular, it has been achieved an empirical analysis on a sample of university incubators, in order to consider successful experiences and limitations of their methodologies in the entrepreneurial promotion. These 'enabling structures' are intended to increase the level of basic education through actions of continuous learning and to develop efficiently a process of networking.

The Israeli case-study put in evidence that: 1. information or codified knowledge, as in the collaboration between RTD institutions, but also tacit knowledge, know-how and competencies circulate in the incubators; 2. 'soft' infrastructures and institutions can remove those obstacles which usually hinder the diffusion of 'technology spill-overs' and stimulate the opening of the local district to the external world, thus favouring its relations with research centres and technologically-advanced businesses; 3. such institutions need a necessary institutional background in order to create and support 'knowledge and innovation networks' at local and inter-regional level; 4. innovative projects can be supported by action tools based on a 'transactive' approach that stimulate cooperation amongst the different actors and facilitate their mutual relations. Finally, it seems to be indispensable the creation of a subject 'integrating' the technological relations amongst the businesses in the different sectors thus assuring a unitary governance of the interactive process of technological development.

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