Business decisions

Abstract

What does it take for an academic scientist to become an entrepreneur? Here are some of their stories.The spread of an entrepreneurial culture is helping academic scientists as they make the arduous journey from a discovery to a product. The support comes in various sizes and shapes: campus competitions to solicit commercially viable ideas, universities establishing their own venture capital funds and "incubators" to nurture startup companies, and programs such as the Innovation Corps at the National Science Foundation. And although some scientists decide to leave campus to follow their commercial dreams, most do not. They like research and teaching, for one thing, and they often don't think they have what it takes to run a company. Here are several stories that illustrate the many possible paths from campus to commercialization.