Academic entrepreneurship in the life sciences

The increasing pressure to generate income from commercializing research is impacting universities and researchers. The way scientists participate in this process needs more investigation. While scientists and entrepreneurs often share similar characteristics (such as: internal locus of control; curiosity and creativity) they can differ significantly with respect to the core of any entrepreneurial function; namely, the intent to profit. Understanding researchers’ perceptions about their role in the process of commercialization provides an interesting framework for analyzing entrepreneurship as a process. Analyzing the responses to 25 interviewees from Australian universities (19 researchers, and 6 technology transfer officers) we conclude that the researcher’s self-perceived roles concerning an entrepreneurial intention can be classified into five main phases: non-entrepreneurial, semientrepreneurial, pre-entrepreneurial, entrepreneurial and post-entrepreneurial. Further, within each of these phases there are a number of different categories of roles. For example, within the nonentrepreneurial phase a researcher might be: “unaware” of the potential to commercialize his/her research; or might be opposed to commercialization (“antipreneur”); or might accept the commercialization of his/her research but not want to be involved (“uninvolved”). The aggregated results that emerge from an understanding of all the possible categories that potentially can exist across the five phases in the entrepreneurial process provides a more comprehensive map of the entrepreneurial mindset of life science academics than currently exists.