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The purpse of this study is to examine sustainable technology development (STD) during the “Valley of Death” phase encountered by university startups undertaking intellectual property rights (IPR) commercialisation.

A comprehensive literature review was conducted after searching for relevant documents across multiple databases. Semi-structured interviews with university startup founders were also conducted as part of a qualitative case study.

This study resulted in two significant findings. First, the Valley of Death has been redefined in the specific context of IPR commercialisation by university startups. Second, the sustainable technology development framework (STDF) has been conceptualised to enhance the success rate of IPR commercialisation by university startups. The authors also identified three essential components of STD in the context of university startups: market development, technical efficiency and business sustainability.

This exploratory research involved a thorough literature analysis. Given that only one qualitative case study was conducted, data saturation was not achieved. Further empirical research is needed to validate the conceptualised STDF.

The validated STDF will be a useful tool for enhancing the success of IPR commercialisation by university startups.

While others have focused on innovating business models, this study focused on an underexplored area: the sustainability of technology development during the commercialisation of IPR by university startups during the Valley of Death phase.

This paper aims at exploring the role of legislations in university startups.

Systematic review of legislations in three countries, namely, the USA, Japan and India, has been carried out to assimilate the role of special legislations in university startups.

The findings of the study reveal the important role that legislations can play in bringing out more university startups. Legislations not only protect the interest of the founder but also provide a cushion to explore further opportunities.

The implications for the makers of the legislations and policies start with the understanding that conducive legislations can help the founders to take up the challenge of starting a commercial entity out of research output.

The study adds to the limited literature connecting university startups and legislations.

A business school within a research university can improve the startup process and success on and near campus. The purpose of this paper is to show the mutual benefits to business and science students in learning about startups and to helping startups grow. The mutual benefit comes from the student understanding and the startup managing the complementary roles of inventor, entrepreneur, and investor.

A case analysis using participant observation, interviews, and document review of the Innovation Center in the College of Business at the Stony Brook University tracks the development of the Center’s educational, research, and consulting activity with engineering departments, incubators, and other support services on campus.

Inventor, investor, and entrepreneurship roles were supported and coordinated by science and business faculties and students in the university. This process, described in specific courses and programs for MBAs and BBAs, includes the contribution of business academic faculty, serial entrepreneur mentors and the scientists in partner organizations that also support startups inside and outside the university. The number of business plans written by students grew from 10 to 100 a year, startups begun from 1 to 5 a year, and established startups renewed grew from 10 a year to 20 a year over five year period.

This case can be useful to research universities and business schools that want to improve the startup process and success.

This study shows that the role of students in the business school in a research university is to transform inventive ideas from the sciences to innovations in the market place through entrepreneurial activity.

With practical entrepreneurship capabilities becoming ever more important for all university graduates, whether they are starting their own business or adding value to an organisation by innovating, improving, and problem-solving, what role do business incubators (BIs) play in helping to develop these capabilities for students? This chapter aims to better understand the role of BIs as extra-curricular entrepreneurship activity in universities through a narrative account of business incubation practice in three institutions – two in England and one in Australia. Utilising a practice-led methodology, the study is underpinned by social capital theory and a critical realist ontological perspective on incubation’s mechanisms, processes, and structures. Across these examples, there are common underpinning principles of entrepreneurial learning and socio-economic development. However, there are differences in implementation regarding space for incubation. Where the BI is on campus and closely integrated with extra-curricular entrepreneurship activity, this results in a cohesive graduate startup community and ongoing peer support. With no BI present, the opposite is observed. The chapter argues that without the infrastructure to build and maintain a community of nascent entrepreneurs to benefit from sustained peer learning, there can be negative impacts on the entrepreneurs and a visible gap affecting the entrepreneurial ecosystem. The chapter concludes with a practice note providing practical considerations for university BIs in communicating the significance of the incubator peer group to prospective entrepreneurs to improve realistic expectations and potentially improve their reach to entrepreneurs who may be experiencing isolation during their startup journey.

We review and synthesize the burgeoning literature on institutions and agents engaged in the commercialization of university-based intellectual property. These studies indicate that institutional incentives and organizational practices play an important role in enhancing the effectiveness of technology transfer. We conclude that university technology transfer should be considered from a strategic perspective. Institutions that choose to stress the entrepreneurial dimension of technology transfer need to address skill deficiencies in technology transfer offices, reward systems that are inconsistent with enhanced entrepreneurial activity, and education/training for faculty members, post-docs, and graduate students relating to interactions with entrepreneurs. Business schools at these universities can play a major role in addressing these skill and educational deficiencies through the delivery of targeted programs to technology licensing officers and members of the campus community wishing to launch startup firms.

Startup companies represent a powerful engine of open innovation (OI) processes. The purpose of this paper is to represent a first step in building a map of the state-of-the-art knowledge of the “startups in an OI context” phenomenon. Through the selection and analysis of relevant literature, this study aims at deepening our understanding of the theme and at providing directions for future research.

By using an explicit method for the review (Pittaway et al., 2004) the authors selected a set of papers, which cover the knowledge domain object of this study. In total, 41 articles about “startups and OI” have been selected and the full papers have been analysed.

The analysed literature has been synthesized in seven sub-topics, which have been evaluated as the most relevant in explaining the phenomenon of startups in relation to OI. Implications for research, for managers and for policy makers conclude the paper.

The review produced valuable knowledge for both managers and policy decision-makers. The paper allows a better understanding of the role of startups in OI processes. This improved understanding can help managers of large firms as well as policy makers involved in OI in making their decisions. Besides, implications of OI strategies for startup managers have been singled-out.

Startup companies are intrinsically open organizations, necessarily engaged in innovation processes. Research at the intersection between the themes of OI and startups is gaining momentum. This review of the literature represents the first attempt to organize the scientific knowledge related to the intersection between the startups and OI phenomena systematically.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the status of university accelerators (UAs) in Australia, expanding a similar paper on related entrepreneurship education (EE) in 2019. The aim is to review neoteric global best practice UA, aligning context and specific inference to the impact of UAs in Australia.

The authors introduce an iterative and emergent inquiry into multi-method research, including a quantitative examination of Australian UAs, Leximancer algorithmic analyses of entrepreneurial strategic intent and narratives from best practice applications.

The paper highlights the sparse and inconsistent distribution across UAs in Australia, further characterized by significant symbolic motives of operation. Furthermore, the integration of EE evidenced on global UA is not as evident in Australia, highlighting outcomes more specific to the success of nascent (student) startups as opposed to educational outcomes.

Limitations include the availability and accuracy of online documents and data, although implications have been mitigated using multi-method research design.

Despite the provision of critical grounding for practitioners and researchers in developing UAs, further research is recommended regarding the efficacy and impact of these accelerators.

This study is the first multi-methods emergent inquiry into UAs in Australia, coupled with integration of EE. The authors provide guidelines and inferences for researchers, educators, policymakers and practitioners alike as they seek to explore and act upon the impact of UAs.

The purpose of this study set out to introduce an alternative framework for explaining the formation of the innovation ecosystem based on the systematic literature review (SLR) and ecosystemic approach.

This paper is an SLR of studies from the year 2008-2018 that investigating startups’ innovation. SLR approach being used exploration, interpretation and communication method, which composed of seven steps as follows exploring topics, searching, organizing, evaluating and expanding, integrating and communicating. The output of this process is 63 documents that applied to synthesize the formation framework.

The systematic review of literature has shown that researchers in recent years have considered some entities such as incubators, financials suppliers, accelerators, universities and companies in relation to the startup innovations, which are described in this paper as key actors. The study of the relationship between these actors in the documents led to the identification of interactional necessities, including structures, infrastructures and networks. Finally, the processes studied in the literature were classified into three types of mechanisms, namely, the genesis, growth and development of startups innovations.

The SLR approach is subject to limitations because some poor explanations amongst previous researchers may be repeated and reinforced. Also, in the protocol adopted in this paper, documents are limited in English.

The introduced frammework can be useful in identifying and understanding the requirements of startups and creating effective policies for their innovation development.

This paper reviews, summarizes and integrates the growing and scattered literature of the innovation ecosystem of the startups and delivers new facts for the future development of this field.

The ongoing business dynamics show two aspects for generating innovation: first, high-impact innovations are developed jointly by several actors, such as universities, enterprises, and governments. Second, startups are better suited to develop innovation during crises or periods of low growth as experienced at the moment. Based on these aspects and drawing on the constructs of the triple helix, this study analyzes the influence between the characteristics of the actors on the quality of the startup ecosystem from a global view.

The study examines the cross-section data of 35 countries between 2017 and 2018 and applies the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) for assessing the relationships between the triple helix on the quality of the startup ecosystem on a country-level.

The findings suggest that each actor of the triple helix individually does not positively affect the quality of the startup ecosystem. Yet, when analyzing the actors jointly by creating a second-order latent variable (i.e. triple helix), the study found out that in this way, the triple helix construct has a positive effect on the quality of the startup ecosystem.

Although a large body of prior literature indicates the importance of generating interrelationships among the different entities involved in ecosystems, few studies provide empirical evidence from a global perspective of the need for these entities to act in an overlapping manner. The present study supports previous research and reinforces the importance of the triple helix for a more innovative environment.

Startups play a significant role in improving societies. This paper concentrates on the concept of “startups” and attempts to present a more comprehensive view of this phenomenon. Also, the focus of this paper is on investigating enterprising communities and the startup ecosystem in Iran.

The existing literature is carefully reviewed, definition and views are explored and the story of this phenomenon is told from the formation to the exit stage. The author elaborates the existing stages and challenges of startups in Iran. To do so, 65 tech startup founders are interviewed. Semi-structured interviews (SI) were based on previous studies mentioning the lifecycle of the startups, and were fully recorded. Moreover, secondary sources of data (SS) were used to support the findings.

The paper classifies the extant theories of startups in two levels, i.e. macro level, and micro and meso levels. Also, it defines some steps for the formation of startups and studies the Iranian startup ecosystem. Last but not the least the paper contributes to the startup ecosystem of Iran which is changing disruptively, especially in the last couple of years.

Findings of this research shed light on the existing ecosystem of startups in Iran, which is rarely studied in previous research. Lack of enough evidence in the existing literature of startup ecosystem in Iran was the most significant limitation of the research which increased the need for more investigation and elaboration.

The paper contributes to understanding the startup ecosystem in Iran, and the challenges.