In recent years, Brazilian universities, as well as other actors in the science and technology system, have been the target of systematic and coordinated actions to weaken their structures. Such events, of course, do not occur without infamous historical precedents around the world. Fortunately, the community of students, technicians, teachers and researchers refuses to assume a passive role in this context and have strived not only to develop excellent results, but also to disseminate them to society. The aim is, therefore, to legitimize the university at times when its contributions are questioned.
In fact, universities are institutions with such a complex nature that they are often misunderstood even by their plural internal communities. Building bridges with society is healthy and welcome, increasing transparency and integration between the university and the context in which it operates. Within this scenario, a role of the university that has gained prominence in recent periods concerns its direct contributions to entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystems. Perhaps here it is also important to understand in greater depth the reverse flow, that is, the scientific and academic benefits that flow from such ecosystems to the environment of higher education institutions – a topic that ends up receiving less attention than it deserves.
For clarification purposes, we define entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystems as local arrangements of interaction between agents (“biotic” components of the ecosystem), occurring within the scope of formal and informal institutions (“abiotic” components). In opposition to natural ecosystems, however, entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystems carry a teleological element, being oriented towards generating new forms of creating socioeconomic value.[1], both by new companies and consolidated organizations. In this context, knowledge – in its most diverse formats – takes on a leading role as a pillar supporting the very logic of ecosystems.
A simplification of this logic leads to the simplistic conclusion that the university is the cradle of the generation and dissemination of knowledge, and can therefore provide this “input” to other agents in the ecosystem. This vision suggests that the university would fulfill the role of a “knowledge factory”, which also places knowledge as an industrial commodity. The empirical evidence we are faced with, however, points to a substantially different reality.[2].
It is true that there is a substantial contingent of research carried out in the academic environment that has the potential to be applied commercially. This occurs through different mechanisms, the most common of which include the opening of companies (academic spin-offs, not forgetting student entrepreneurship) and the licensing of patents. With a view to encouraging such practices, the Brazilian regulatory framework adopted perspectives largely based on the Bayh-Dole Act, a US law aimed at regulating intellectual property and its transfer in the context of universities and research institutes in that country. In Brazil, this corresponded to the promulgation of the 2004 Innovation Law (Law 10.973/2004) and, more recently, its revision through the New Legal Framework for Science, Technology and Innovation (Law 13.243/2016). Such actions represented unequivocal advances in the integration between universities and entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystems, but they still miss an in-depth understanding of this phenomenon, not to mention the impasses in the regulation and operationalization of such a framework.
Many of the knowledge flows with which the university is involved have an informal character and are therefore not subject to management control and planning. Effectively, what seems to exist is a centrality of unstructured interactions, based on knowledge constructed and shared by students, teachers, technicians and society at a frenetic pace and unrelated to formal planning and objectives. Allowing a good dose of chaos is essential for entrepreneurship and innovation to flourish in the academic environment. And this involves understanding that knowledge from society and companies themselves also flows to the university, combining dialectically with scientific knowledge and enriching the knowledge matrix of the academic community and, in turn, the ecosystem as a whole.
This collaboration itself goes beyond the compartmentalized and unidirectional vision of technology transfer, which presupposes isolated creation of knowledge for subsequent supply. This is the key to generating effective mutualism between universities and their context. The positive news is that Brazilian universities – especially public ones, which concentrate a large part of national research – have evolved significantly in this sphere[3], even more so when analyzing the context of São Paulo.
The bad news concerns the uncertainties generated by the underfunding of scientific research, which directly impacts the ability of universities to attract and retain qualified human capital. These are elements that negatively affect not only academic activities, but the ability of universities to support the maturation of entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystems. Capacity building, both at the micro level of the university and at the macro level of the ecosystem, is a cumulative, co-evolutionary and path-dependent process. And why does this matter?
Firstly, because it affects the quality and quantity of research with the potential to generate socioeconomic gains. Indicators of technology licensing and creation of spin-offs are undoubtedly important measures of universities' contribution to the economic fabric. But they tell a very incomplete and myopic story of the role of universities in ecosystems. In fact, universities demonstrate multiple contributions to society, far beyond generating business competitiveness. This includes the generation of frugal technologies, that is, aimed at solving problems in vulnerable communities, democratizing access to goods, services and decent living conditions for the population.[4]. In addition, they are cradles for the emergence of new companies based on technologies aimed at environmentally sustainable development.[5]. This means that the role of universities in entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystems is not restricted to quantitative elements, but has the potential to stimulate qualitative transitions in these ecosystems. These changes are essential in the face of the challenges that human society faces and will continue to face in the future.
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It is of fundamental importance to state that the arguments presented here do not in any way represent an idea of a hierarchy of university impacts on society. Under no circumstances do we seek to suggest that the relationships established by the university with the entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystem overlap with other university missions. The missions of universities need to be seen as complementary. Teaching, research and extension act as systems that feed each other not only based on internal flows, but also through interactions with the ecosystem in which the university is inserted and with global systems.
In fact, such contributions are not only multiple, but, in most cases, they are inseparable in their essence. And it is based on this vision that the university should not and cannot be seen as merely instrumental in the dynamics of entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystems. Furthermore, the autonomy of the academic community must be respected unrestrictedly, allowing greater involvement with entrepreneurship and innovation for those who see this purpose as something legitimate and aligned with their sense of personal and professional identity. On the other hand, never imposing that the academic community gets involved in activities in which there is no interest or adherence on the part of individuals. Respect for diversity and plurality of perspectives is the mainstay of the university's own ethos.
[1] Therefore, we exclude here the mere notion of self-employment as a synonym for entrepreneurship. We also do not consider the generic definition of “opening new businesses”, since these do not necessarily coincide with new forms of creating socioeconomic value, being closer to the idea of circulation of value. On the contrary, international literature has consistently reported that such forms of entrepreneurship are negatively associated with economic development.
[2] Schaeffer, P.R., Guerrero, M., & Fischer, B.B. (2021). Mutualism in ecosystems of innovation and entrepreneurship: a bidirectional perspective on universities' linkages. Journal of Business Research, 134, 184-197. doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2021.05.039
[3] Fischer, BB, Schaeffer, PR, & Vonortas, NS (2019). Evolution of university-industry collaboration in Brazil from a technology upgrading perspective. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 145, 330-340. doi:10.1016/j.techfore.2018.05.001
[4] Fischer, B., Guerrero, M., Guimón, J., & Schaeffer, P.R. (2021). Knowledge transfer for frugal innovation: where do entrepreneurial universities stand? Journal of Knowledge Management, 25(2), 360-379. doi:10.1108/JKM-01-2020-0040
[5] Fischer, B., Bayona-Alsina, A., da Rocha, AKL, & de Moraes, GHSM (2022). Ecosystems of green entrepreneurship in perspective: evidence from Brazil. International Journal of Technological Learning, Innovation and Development, 14(1-2), 52-77. doi:10.1504/IJTLID.2022.121475
*Bruno Brandão Fischer is an associate professor at the Faculty of Applied Sciences (FCA) Unicamp and a researcher at the Laboratory of Entrepreneurship, Innovation and International Trade (LEICI)
**Paola Rücker Schaeffer is director of innovation management at the Secretariat of Innovation, Science and Technology of Rio Grande do Sul and professor at Atitus Educação
This text is an opinion article and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Unicamp.
