Analysis of the Dynamism in University-Driven Innovation Ecosystems Through the Assessment of Entrepreneurship Role

Abstract

This paper provides a new way of representing the actors and relationships of a university-type innovation ecosystem based on knowledge. Thanks to this new representation, analysis, and management of knowledge flows are enabled not only qualitatively but also quantitatively, being possible to use well-known tools, such as social network analysis (SNA). Through this contribution, it is possible to analyze both the behavior of the actors individually and the behavior of the ecosystem as a whole in university-type innovation ecosystems, which contributes to adding new knowledge of great relevance for decision-making. Using this new analysis framework, this paper analyzes the dynamism of innovation ecosystems through the assessment of entrepreneurship role, which is tested within the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) case. In addition, to show the potential of this new framework, a series of new concepts is introduced, such as connectors and events, which act as activators for the improvement of the structure and dynamism of the innovation ecosystem.