Technion (Israel) - experience in creating a university ecosystem to support startups

Abstract

Israel is famous for hi-tech successful businesses. Journalists and scholars have suggested varied factors for emerging of Israeli start-up culture. Among them universities are often mentioned. There are 8 universities in Israel. Some of them were founded even before the Israeli state was declared. Technion - Israeli Institute of Technology is emphasized in this research due to several reasons. This is Israeli pioneer of higher education, hard science, and technology. Since its foundation, the university's management has been actively participating in the Israeli politics and economy. Different management practices have been used for encouraging students and teaching staff to commercialise their inventions. So, the goal of the article is to examine and analyse specific managerial know-how used at Technion. All the literature and sources used during the research can be divided into several groups. First of all, we have tried to identify innovation economy and its features. Then we have compared economic situation in Israel with the key characteristics of innovation economy. We have analysed publications of Saperstein \& Rouach, Avidor, and Frenkel et al. for these purposes. The second group includes statistical data in the form of reports and press releases. For example, the Global Competitiveness Reports from the World Economic Forum were applied. Then newspaper articles about Israeli innovations, Technion, and start-ups have been examined. In addition to that, press releases and documents of the Technion management have been observed. To confirm our findings, we have interviewed an executive from one of the Technion organisations supporting start-ups. The structure of the article allows us to observe macro- and microlevels of Israeli start-up support system. The article begins with the description of Israeli economic system. Then the role of Technion in the emergence of innovation economic is examined. It is revealed, that Technion management organized a lot of organisations, which help students and teaching staff to commercialise their inventions. Their activity varies from intellectual property rights consultations to minor courses for sophomores. That is an integral system, where every unit is responsible for different aspects of start-up maintenance. Nevertheless, these organisations are interconnected. They collaborate and create convenient conditions for making start-ups. In the end of the article we sum up structure of the start-up support organisations at Technion and emphasise their role in the emergence of the Israeli innovation economy.