Bio- and regenera- tive Medicine as an important growth Market

40 HHL RESEARCH REPORT 2012 innOvATiOn And EnTREPREnEuRSHiP 41
Bohr’s Quadrant
(pure basic research)
nO
COnSidERATiOn Of uSE?
Hobbyist’s Quadrant
(exploring particular
phenomena)
YES
pasteur’s Quadrant
(use-inspired
basic research)
challenge of the entrepreneurial university
QuEST fOR
fundAMEnTAL
undERSTAnding
nO
YES
edison’s Quadrant
(pure applied research)
As Stokes pointed out in his four quadrants, if universities aim for
more use-inspired basic research like in Pasteur’s quadrant, they
could become much stronger in making use of their knowledge.
They could do this without losing their demanding standards, which
would happen if they concentrated on pure applied research like
in Edison’s quadrant. The balance between science and technology
needs is the essential asset modern universities should possess.
StiFtungSFondS deutScHe BanK cHair oF
innovation ManageMent and entrepreneurSHip
the changing role of
uni versities as innovation
engines and entrepreneurial
Hubs
The importance of the quality of
knowledge for the welfare of nations
can be illustrated by a simple example .
Although the physical weight of the US’s
annual exports has not changed significantly
over the last one hundred years,
the real value of its exports has increased
twentyfold . It is the knowledge that
goes into the goods and services and the
processes required to produce them that
determines the value of the exports and
their competitiveness in world markets .
Historically, the traditional school of
thought has regarded universities as a
typical ‘production machine’ of human
resources . On the other hand, companies
encourage researchers to join their R&D
department, and in some years, each of
these companies has a huge R&D department,
in which many researchers are
working on relatively similar tasks with
low degree of efficiency and specialization,
and where ideas are developed in
their central facilities, and then developed
to a product or service .
Now companies have shifted to a more
project-oriented approach, where research
activities are sectored and spread
across several sites that are not only in
the company’s headquarters, but also
worldwide . The interest in a big R&D
research center has seriously declined .
Parallel to the change in companies,
universities as well have been changing
. It started with universities seeking
cooperation with nearby companies
and national firms, reaching to a global
network of cooperation between universities
and firms on the international
level, moving from central research
units to joint-venture laboratories (i .e .
university-industry collaborations),
to a research institution, reaching to a
complete form of an emerging company .
The late nineteenth century witnessed
an academic revolution in which universities
added a third task in addition
to research and teaching, which is
its contribution into the economic
development . This trend began in the
U .S .A . in the 1970s, then in various
Western European countries during
the 1980s .
The role of universities as engines of
innovation is in the first place due to
the education and qualification of the
students, doctorates and the post-docs .
The people are the creative disrupters,
the catalysts and the future entrepreneurs
. This is the traditional function of
universities, which counts in the current
world of sciences much more than it
ever has in the past .
What is really new in principle, is that
the best skilled people develop their
splendid ideas und inventions more
often during their time in the universities,
than when they begin working in
the laboratories of the research oriented
companies as they had in the past .
Therefore the universities not only have
to “produce” the best people, but they
also have to organize well the shift of
knowledge from the labs in the universities
to the markets .
The shift from mode 1 to mode 2
was a great change in the concept
of knowledge transfer . According to
Michael Gibbons and his co-workers,
mode 1 is about the traditional knowledge
created within a discipline in a cognitive
context, while mode 2 is created
in a broader transdisciplinary social and
economic context . Shifts in universities
reflected changing from mode 1 to mode
2, to the bigger manifestation of the
expanding role of universities which is
the Triple Helix approach . As the name
suggests, it is the combined effort of a
society’s three main institutions – universities,
companies, and government
agencies, that overlays the network of
knowledge sharing .
Over the last ten years, most countries
have been trying to attain some
advanced form of the Triple Helix . Their
main goal is to attain an “innovative
environment consisting of university
spin-offs, tri-lateral initiatives for
knowledge-based economic development,
and strategic alliances among
firms, government laboratories, and
academic research groups . These arrangements
are often then encouraged,
but not controlled by the government .”
The universities in all developed countries
especially in the US and Germany
have added in the past two decades a
lot of additional functions to the innovation
process . More quantitative as
well as qualitative participation at the
national and international innovation
eco-system has taken place .
In addition to this multifunctional
nature, especially within U .S . universities,
they are magnets for the best skilled
immigrants . With a rapid growing share
of foreign-born doctorates in the US
from 15 percent in the age group of 66 to
70 up to over 40 percent in the age group
StiFtungSFondS deutScHe BanK cHair oF
innovation ManageMent and entrepreneurSHip
cHair donor
Stiftungsfonds deutsche Bank
cHairHolder
Prof. dr. Andreas Pinkwart
contact
www.hhl.de/innovation
core coMpetencieS/
reSearcH intereSt
• innovation management in new
business creation and in established
companies
• focus on intellectual venturing
• transfer of created knowledge from
academia into businesses