Development of research on the university entrepreneurship ecosystem: trends and areas of interest of researchers based on a systematic review of literature

Abstract

Research background: The concept of the university entrepreneurship ecosystem is nowadays a part of the current trends in researching the determinants of support for commercialization of research results. The subject is relatively new, because the first papers in this topic are dated to 2009, and in fact it has only been in the last 3 years that the interest of researchers in this subject has increased.

Purpose of the article: The purpose of this study is to analyze the state of research on the issue of the university ecosystem of academic entrepreneurship and to identify the main research trends related to this topic.

Methods: The article was based on a systematic review of the literature (SLR), which included the selection of basic literature and selection of publications, mayor researchers, bibliometric analysis and content analysis.

Findings & Value added: The results of the conducted research indicate that the study of the university ecosystem of academic entrepreneurship is still a new issue, poorly recognized in literature, without a solid methodological foundation and which may constitute a current and interesting research area. Our paper adds to existing research in four important ways. We provide a holistic review of university entrepreneurial ecosystem. We also identify the challenges identified in this area and suggest how they may be developed.  Third, our results are also policy-relevant. For policy-makers, it is important to know whether academic engagement is driven by mechanisms existing in academic ecosystem or affected by factors that may not be activated by it.

Keywords

academic entrepreneurship, university (academic) entrepreneurship ecosystem, systematic literature review

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