Bridging the gap between invention and innovation: The role of university-based start-up programs and private cooperation

Abstract

Within their activities in research and teaching, universities generate significant resources for creation and invention processes. Unfortunately, inventions often cannot be transformed into innovations, and therefore lack the market commercialisation. Reasons for that might be missing resources of universities for further prototyping and testing ideas. At this point, also known as ‘Valley of Death’, the main university task (namely conducting research) ceases, and as a result entrepreneurial potential remains unexploited. This chapter elaborates on two possible options how to overcome the ‘Valley of Death’. In a first step, several aspects of potential resources and their meaning for an innovation process are derived from literature. German entrepreneurship initiatives, which are explored empirically through their business models in order to gain an insight of how invention processes are supported, could be one option. A second option may be private start-programs like venture capital and corporate incubation that approach the innovation process from a commercialised perspective. The findings indicate that university initiatives have to shift their finances in order to sustain their start-up activities. In this context, the role of public private partnerships seems to be a viable option to be discussed.