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The Entrepreneurial University

Revisited: Conflicts and the Importance
of Role Separation
Jakob Vestergaard
Published online: 11 Apr 2007.

To cite this article: Jakob Vestergaard (2007): The Entrepreneurial University Revisited: Conflicts
and the Importance of Role Separation, Social Epistemology: A Journal of Knowledge, Culture and
Policy, 21:1, 41-54
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Social Epistemology
Vol. 21, No. 1, JanuaryMarch 2007, pp. 4154

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The Entrepreneurial University

Revisited: Conflicts and the Importance
of Role Separation
Jakob Vestergaard
JakobVestergaard
Social
10.1080/02691720601125498
0269-1728
Original
Taylor
102007
21
jvj.lpf@cbs.dk
00000JanuaryMarch
Epistemology
&
Article
Francis
(print)/1464-5297
TSEP_A_212481.sgm
and
Francis Ltd 2007 (online)

On the basis of a recent in-depth case study of the severe conflicts that arose in relation to
the process of forming a spin-off biotech company at Helsinki University, Juha Tuunainen
argued that the traditional university is not being transformed into an entrepreneurial
one as straightforwardly as claimed by Henry Etzkowitz and that it remains an open
question whether hybrid entities combining academic work and corporate activity can
ever survive as stable organizations within a university (2005, 202, 203). The present
paper offers a reinterpretation of Tuunainens study, identifying the inadequate separation
of researcher and entrepreneur roles as the crux of the conflicts. Most importantly, however,
this reinterpretation enables the conceptualisation of a model for university governance
that maintains role separation while at the same time promoting an acceleration of
university entrepreneurship and commercialisation by integrating it in the very core of the
university institution.
Keywords: The Entrepreneurial University; Commercialisation of Research; Conflicts;
Role Separation; Tenure
Introduction
Despite decades of political promotion, few universities generate significant funds
from commercialisation of university research. Attempts to promote the commercialisation of university research by setting up separate science parks have disappointed
expectations (Hansson, Husted, and Vestergaard 2005), and numerous studies have
shown that efforts to commercialise research at universities are impeded by internal
Jakob Vestergaards work includes contract research for the World Bank and the OECD on policies promoting
university interaction with industry in Colombia, Denmark, Finland, Malaysia, Sweden and the UK. He has
recently completed his doctoral research at Copenhagen Business School, Denmark. Correspondence to: Jakob
Vestergaard, Institut for Ledelse, Politik og Filosofi, Porcelnshaven 18A, 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark. Email:
jvj.lpf@cbs.dk.
ISSN 02691728 (print)/ISSN 14645297 (online) 2007 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/02691720601125498

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42

J. Vestergaard

tensions and conflicts between researchers and various levels of university management (Rappert and Webster 1997; Senker 1990; Tuunainen 2005). Yet, the policymaking of governments across the world seems to assume that barriers to commercialisation of research do not exist, or will disappear at least, if only policy-making is
sufficiently loud and persistent. If policies striving to turn science into business
(Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD] 2003) continue
to be based on high hopes and little understanding of the key issues and barriers
involved, there is little reason to expect much progress in the near future.
Generally speaking, four main elements of policies promoting knowledge transfer
and commercialisation can be observed: 1) changes in intellectual property law; 2)
recommendations regarding reward systems for researchers; 3) increasing the relative
share of research funding that is strategic; and 4) provision of extra incentives
through special, promotional funding schemes (Vestergaard 2006). The underlying
notion is that if policymakers create what is seen as the appropriate intellectual
property rights regime and allow both the individual researcher and the university to
have financial incentives, knowledge transfer and commercialisation will increase.
There is no evidence that this approach has yielded significant results in the past, and
little reason to expect it to do so in the future.
Unfortunately, there is not much guidance to be found on these issues in scholarly
literature. The debate here is strongly polarised. One side seems to advocate a just do
it approach similar to that of most policymakers, and the other side argues that the
very notion of public universities proactively engaging in the commercialisation of
research is dangerous and indeed against the nature of universities. From a political
governance perspective as well as from the perspective of university management,
there is every reason to strive to develop ways in which the commercialisation of
university research can be promoted, managed and governedin an effective
manner, while at the same time ensuring that the integrity of science itself is not
undermined.
The present paper is inspired by Steve Fullers social epistemology, notably by the
significant importance it accords to policy-oriented science studies (Fuller 1991, 2000,
2002, 2005). Fullers programme has deep roots in the work of Kuhn and Foucault, but
while these have largely led researchers in science and technology studies to take a
descriptive turn, social epistemology presents itself as the normative wing of science
studies. It accepts the bulk of the sociological account of scientific knowledge but
insists on cultivating a normative orientation, by rephrasing epistemological norms so
as to make them tractable to science policy and to make them able to challenge the
assumptions behind existing policies. This paper proceeds from the contention that the
current policy mix is unlikely to produce the desired changes in the operations of
universities. To identify a range of policies that might be effective, while at the same
time preserving the integrity of science, it will be necessary to first understand the
phenomena at hand: what are the key issues and main barriers at stake in promoting
commercialisation of research in public universities, and what may be learnt from this
about the logic of university institutions and the ways in which their relations with the
economy can be influenced?

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Social Epistemology 43

Jackson (1989) argues that often it is in destabilised, tense situations that the key
to understanding a phenomenon may be found. In a recent study, Juha Tuunainen
(2005) depicts a series of conflicts that arose in relation to the process of forming a
spin-off company at the University of Helsinki.1 Tuunainen argues that his study
shows that the traditional university is not being transformed into an entrepreneurial
one as straightforwardly as claimed by Henry Etzkowitz (2005, 202) and that it
remains an open question whether hybrid entities that combine academic work and
corporate activity can ever survive as stable organizations within a university (2005,
203). In this paper, I first summarise Tuunainens excellent case study of the formation
of the biotech company, CropCorp, emphasising the range of conflicts that arose
between the professor in charge of the spin-off company and the head of department
and, second, suggest a reinterpretation of the conflicts depicteda reinterpretation
that allows for the conceptualisation of policies that may help overcome the impasse in
which policies promoting university entrepreneurship find themselves today. While
Tuunainens study gives an extraordinary insight into intra-university conflicts over
commercialisation of research, I develop an explanatory thesis quite different from the
one suggested by Tuunainen. The conflicts depicted are not endemic to traditional
universities, I argue, and nor do they warrant the conclusion that commercialisation
activities should be relegated to peripheral units rather than being placed at the core of
academic enterprise. What the conflicts depicted in the case study do suggest, I argue,
is the importance of keeping the role of the researcher and the private entrepreneur
separated. This does not imply, however, that academic departments should not be
actively involved in commercialisation of research. Quite the contrary: I close by
indicating some key elements of a model for the commercialisation of university
research, predicated upon role separation and on-campus collaborative research with
private sector partners. Using Tuunainens in-depth study of CropCorp to inform, the
development of this model subscribes to the notion of analytical generalizability
(Burgelman 1985; Flyvbjerg 2004; Gomm et al. 2000; Yin 1994)and as such certainly
invites further research and empirical qualification.
1. Tuunainens Thesis: The Limits of Entrepreneurialism
Tuunainen positions his case study in opposition to the work of Henry Etzkowitz on
the alleged emergence of an entrepreneurial university. According to Tuunainen,
Etzkowitz has claimed that the entrepreneurial university is a new type of institution
which is evolving as a result of the intensive interaction between the previously isolated
spheres of the university, industry and government (Tuunainen 2005, 174), an
institution which integrates economic development into the university as an academic
function along with teaching and research, and in which the foundation of spin-off
firms have become systematized into an organizationally refined approach that makes
the entire institution a quaisi-incubator (Tuunainen 2005, 174). Further, Tuunainen
argues, Etzkowitz considers the emergence of the entrepreneurial university a fairly
universal phenomenon (2005, 175). To Tuunainen, Etzkowitzs claims with regard to
the emergence of the entrepreneurial university does not pay enough attention to the

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J. Vestergaard

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problems and contradictions universities encounter as they cater for the new economic
functions (2005, 174). On the contrary, Tuunainen quotes Etzkowitz for arguing that
such controversies are predicated to disappear as the entrepreneurial university takes
hold, and that opposing norms will be reinterpreted emphasizing harmony rather
than disharmony, mutual reinforcement rather than detraction from each goal (2005,
174). Though agreeing that the model proposed by Etzkowitz captures some changes
in the contemporary role of universities, Tuunainen remains sceptical about
Etzkowitzs claims:
I wonder whether these changes justify speaking of the emergence of a whole new type of
university on a global scale. I also wonder whether the available empirical evidence is
strong enough to support the claim that the entrepreneurial university is on the rise.
(Tuunainen 2005, 175)

In explicit relation to these concerns, Tuunainen sets out to test the scope of
Etzkowitzs model, by subjecting a real series of events to an empirical analysis (2005,
175). The case study shows the limits of entrepreneurialism, Tuunainen argues
(2005, 201). On the basis of his study, Tuunainen suggests that remarkable cultural
changes and organizational learning would be required in order to make the hybrid
firm a permanent part of the traditional university (2005, 203). Indeed, Tuunainen
concludes, it remains an open question whether hybrid firms can ever survive as stable
organizations within a university (2005, 203). If hybrid firms such as CropCorp are
ever to survive as stable organisations it is likely, Tuunainen argues, to take place not
in core units of the university, but in special peripheral units:
I think that a distinction should be made between special intermediary structures and
functions that assist technology transfer and the core academic units, such as departments. While the auxiliary parts of the university may, indeed, reach out to the corporate
world, the academic core may still seek to dissociate itself from entrepreneurship. As a
matter of fact, the relocation of business ventures into incubators effectively protects the
core academic departments from direct entrepreneurial influence. (Tuunainen 2005,
20203)

While I agree with Tuunainen that Etzkowitzs claims regarding the universal and
harmonious rise of the entrepreneurial university are somewhat nave, I disagree
with Tuunainens contention that the CropCorp study shows the limits of entrepreneurialism (2005, 201). In contrast to Tuunainen, I argue that it is indeed possible to
develop a mode of university governance in which university entrepreneurship and
commercialisation is anchored at the very core of the institution, rather than in
peripheral units. This, however, requires the recognition and recasting of the necessity of keeping the role of the researcher and the private entrepreneur separate. The
necessity of this role separation is powerfully illustrated by Tuunainens study. Thus, in
the interpretation I outline below (Section 4), the conflicts are not endemic to traditional universities, but the result of a violation of the principle of role separation. After
this reinterpretation of Tuunainens study, the paper briefly discusses how university
governance may maintain role separation and yet integrate university entrepreneurship and commercialisation in the very core of the university institution.

Social Epistemology 45

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2. Conflicts in the Formation of a Spin-off Company

When CropCorp was founded in 1998 by researchers at the University of Helsinki, all
key elements for a successful commercialisation of research results seemed present.
National science and technology policies were favourable and public funding for basic
and applied research was provided. Moreover, the central management of the university was keen to promote commercialisation of its research and a general policy for
those purposes had been formulated in 1997. In short, the university was in the early
phases of building institutional support structures for entrepreneurship and commercialisation. Yet, the process of forming a spin-off company turned out to be anything
but smooth. Soon after public capital investment was achieved, the establishment of
CropCorp became an issue of heated conflict, ultimately bringing the venture to an
end. It is this conflict that Tuunainen (2005) documents and interprets.
Professor Monto led the spin-off company. She was a Finn by birth, but had done
her PhD and subsequent research in the UK and the US, developing a substantial
international reputation. In 1990, she was recruited by the Department of Agriculture
at the University of Helsinki. In addition to vast research experience, Monto had
worked for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in developing
countries. Recruiting Monto was part of an attempt to modernise the departments
research. Monto was the first in Finland to apply modern biotechnology to field-crop
plants, and it was believed that she could contribute significantly to bringing the
departments research profile in plant biotechnology up to international standards.
Over a period of eight years, from 1990 to 1998, Monto and a dedicated group of junior
researchers had developed a research programme with strong commercial potential. By
1998, her research group was determined to bring their research to market. The
research programme had initially focused on combating the biological hazards posed
by viruses in potato production by developing a virus-resistant potato cultivar. The
research programme was later expanded to include research on the insect resistance of
a number of plants and the development of a production system for foreign proteins in
plants. In the initial phases of its research, the group received its research funding from
the Academy of Finland, which gives grants for basic research on a competitive basis.
After a few years the groups research started yielding commercially promising results.
Consequently, from 1997 the group received its funding from Tekes, the national
funding agency for industrial and applied research. It was as the commercial potential
of the research grew that Monto and her group decided to establish a spin-off company.
She explained her motivation as follows:
[CropCorp] is my first priority, and I want to proceed to lead it provided that we can get
the capital investment from [a major national research and development fund]. And, then,
[Id like to] maintain, partly, if these people are interested, or if some other unit at the
university is interested, an academic group including students from developing countries
in order to work with deeper academic questions. (Monto quoted in Tuunainen 2005, 181)

Though public capital investment for establishing the company was indeed achieved
in 1998, Monto never succeeded in realising this vision. The first conflict concerned the
boundary between Montos official duties as a university researcher and her work in the

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46

J. Vestergaard

spin-off company. The dean of the faculty found that Montos use of office hours for
the benefit of ones own firm [was] slightly liberal (Tuunainen 2005, 184). The
department head shared this concern, stressing that Monto, in his view, was not carrying her share of the teaching load of the department. In autumn 1998, the department
head began to insist on receiving accounts from Monto regarding the spin-off
company and the relative allocation of her working hours. Monto fiercely resisted
giving any information about the company. She was confident that she fulfilled her
academic duties outstandingly, and felt that the department heads request for
information on the company and on her relative allocation of working hours was an
expression of mistrust, overenthusiastic administration, bullying and micromanagement, exercised at the expense of the departments academic performance and
applied mission (Monto quoted in Tuunainen 2005, 190).
In November 1998, Monto informed the department head of her intention to take a
partial leave of absence in order to work part time in the spin-off company while
continuing her academic research. She further expressed the hope that the department
would agree to rent laboratory space to the company until the universitys business
incubator was completed. The department head expressed approval of the leave as well
as willingness to arrange a rental agreement. To discuss this part-time rental arrangement Monto invited the university rector to visit her laboratory. She did not inform the
department head about her meeting with the rector, and when he learned that such a
meeting had taken place without his knowing it, he sent a letter to the rector. In this
letter he affirmed that the department saw the spin-off company as a positive event, but
regretted not having been informed about the meeting. When Monto learned of this
intervention she responded promptly:
Hi, my meeting [with the rector] was entirely private, and I do not want you to intervene
in it in any manner If any of my meetings with the university management, or other, are
connected to the department I shall inform you properly. I do not want you to mention
[the firm CropCorp] in any occasion either, least associated with this department or your
own support We are arranging our affairs fully legitimately, and we shall contact the
department properly. (Monto quoted in Tuunainen 2005, 191)

She insisted that since no legal rules were violated the department head should not get
involved in issues relating to the company. The department head was deeply frustrated
with Montos refusal to provide accountability to the department and honour its partnership. He decided to sharpen his stance. This included making Montos partial leave
of absence conditional on a number of stipulations. From this point onwards, the
conflict grew still more aggressive on both sides, and eventually came to a head when
the department head contacted the police regarding a controversy over university
research equipment. When Monto left the department, the conflict had come to
revolve around a range of issues: (i) general information about the spin-off company,
(ii) allocation of work time between academic duties and company-related activity,
(iii) reporting requirements, (iv) partial leave of absence, (v) undergraduate teaching,
(vi) relations to the university rector and the wider university administration, (vii)
research equipment, and (viii) external communication regarding links between the
department and the spin-off company.

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Social Epistemology 47

Despite strong institutional encouragement and support, the process of forming a

spin-off company was rife with conflict and eventually the company cut all connections
with the university. Monto emigrated to the USA.
The lessons learned from the case study are, Tuunainen argues, that the
traditional university is not being transformed into an entrepreneurial one as straightforwardly as claimed by Etzkowitz (2005, 202). First, the attempt to combine
academic work and the formation of a private company was beset with complexities
and conflicts (Tuunainen 2005, 202). Second, the university was ambivalent with
regard to accommodating academic entrepreneurialism within its core academic
units, and eventually CropCorp was sealed off in a more peripheral organizational
position within the universitys business incubator (Tuunainen 2005, 202). This is
taken as a confirmation of Tuunainens initial hypothesis that Etzkowitzs model is of
limited usefulness in the case of the traditional public-funded universities in Europe
(2005, 176).
3. Reinterpretation: The Importance of Role Separation
Throughout the 1990s, Finlands science and technology policies were characterised by
massive public investments in research programmes particularly devised to strengthen
the competitiveness of Finnish industries (Lemola 2003; Romanainen 1999, 2002;
Vestergaard 2003). Public investment in the commercial interests of private companies
was a core element of the Finnish model, and widely accepted. Thus, Montos group
received public financing of applied research and the formation of CropCorp as a
private company was based also on public funding, received through Sitra, the national
venture capital agency. Yet, within the university this was considered highly problematic.
From the point of view of universities, when they engage in collaborative research
with private companies, university researchers are expected and allowed to make a
contribution to a cluster of existing private companies, but not to profit themselves.
Within the context of the Finnish modelto which the spending of public money to
help private companies improve their competitive position and prosper is so central
this resistance to allowing university researchers to benefit financially is surprising. It
seems paradoxical that investing public funds in research and development that
directly benefits private companies is considered fully legitimateas long as these
private companies are not set up and operated by public researchers. Indeed, given the
strong political desire for public science to serve the needs and interests of the
economy, one is compelled to ask why the supposed key agents in university entrepreneurship and commercialisation are the only ones not allowed to have a financial
incentive in making it happen? After all, this does run counter to the otherwise widely
accepted conventional wisdom that economic incentive is necessary to make things
happen in economies.
On closer scrutiny, financial incentives for researchers are allowed. The widespread
existence and acceptance of royalty income for researchers testifies that the fundamental issue is not so much whether or not individual researchers earn an additional

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48

J. Vestergaard

income. The fundamental issue lies instead, I argue, in the fact that it is considered
illegitimate for an individual to be, at the same time, a public researcher and an entrepreneur. To substantiate this, consider again Tuunainens case study.
When CropCorp relocated in the science park facility of the University of Helsinki,
conflicts arose anew. Though the leaders of the host institute in the science park were
favourable to entrepreneurship and commercialisation, this was so only on the
condition that entrepreneurial activities were accomplished elsewhere than in the
confines of the institute and that it did not affect working hours, or employees ability
to carry out their academic duties (Tuunainen 2004, 20). For the purposes of ensuring that a boundary was created between the academic projects of Montos group and
the activities of the spin-off company, a collaboration agreement was made. In and
through this agreement two boundaries were instituted: a social boundary and a
spatial boundary. The regulation that sought to institute a social boundary was the
insistence that the previous mixed researcher-entrepreneur roles were abandoned,
strictly separating those working on academic projects from those working on CropCorp technology development projects. In addition, the agreement instituted a spatial
boundary, demanding that the groups premises were clearly divided between those
used for academic projects and those used for the commercial projects of CropCorp.
From the perspective of Montos group, these boundaries were highly problematic
given that its research strategy was to combine basic and applied research, resulting in
the actual absence of a clear distinction of what was purely academic and what was
purely applied and commercial. The group circumvented the spatial boundary by
pulling down the partitions, organising their lab space to fit practical needs rather
than follow directions given in the collaboration agreement. When it came to the
groups finances, however, the head of the university administration insisted on
sustained monitoring to ensure that public grants would not flow from the university
to the private company. The conflict continued, in other words. Asked how she felt
the university had acted in relation to the commercialisation agenda, Monto
answered:
Ambivalently. That is, the decisions in principle, and these big physical buildings that have
been constructed for firms, express the positive attitude. But then every turn of events has
clearly [indicated] that in practice there is a lot of backlash, so that people who do not
accept this, they are given possibilities to muck around. The passing through of the [new]
mode of action is ambivalent. The word has not yet turned into flesh, so to say. People
dont yet act in the way rhetoric says. (quoted in Tuunainen 2005, 185)

In brief, Monto felt that the university favoured commercialization in the abstract but
prevented people from doing it in reality (Tuunainen 2005, 185).
Ultimately, the group decided to cease its academic projects and become a fully independent private entity. Monto herself decided to leave Helsinki altogether, taking up a
position in a multinational company in the US. In two successive runs, combining
academic research and commercialisation had proved impossible within the confines
of the University of Helsinki. The rationality underlying the resistance towards
academic entrepreneurship at Helsinki University is well captured by a remark made
by the institutes head of administration:

Social Epistemology 49

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The roles need to stay clear. And, of course, these kind of mixed communities further their
confusion Where does the boundary between university and entrepreneurial activities
lie[?] One can do nothing in such a way that one sits on two chairs Within the university, entrepreneurial activities can be engaged in by hiring equipment, by paying for
premises, instruments, service But in that case, one cant have a dual role of being
simultaneously engaged in the firm and at the university. Instead, it is definite: you are on
either side. (quoted in Tuunainen 2005, 198)

A need to choose is invoked. Either you are a public researcher or you are a private
entrepreneur.
What can be inferred from this? It is considered legitimate that a public researcher
with commercially promising research takes royalty income when his invention is
brought to market by other people, but it is controversial if the public researcher
decides to continue being a public researcher and be directly involved in the spin-off
company. What at first seemed a paradoxnamely that universities are expected to be
more entrepreneurial so that society benefits more from its investment in public
science, and yet it is not considered acceptable that university researchers have a
personal, financial incentive to engage in this agendaultimately appears overdrawn.
It is indeed accepted that university researchers earn extra money from commercialisation of research: namely in the form of royalties. The real tension thus appears in the
fact that it is considered legitimate only in that particular form, because in this form no
confusion of roles is involved: the public researcher continues to be a public researcher;
he is at arms length distance from the commercialisation of his research.
4. Policy Implications: At the Core, Not in the Periphery
As mentioned previously, Tuunainen argues that if hybrid entities such as CropCorp
are ever to survive as stable organisations within the university, they are likely to do so
in separate, peripheral units, rather than in regular departments, the core academic
units of the university (2005, 20203). In opposition to Tuunainen, I argue that it is
indeed possible to accommodate university entrepreneurship and commercialisation
at the very core of university. In fact, anchoring university entrepreneurship and
commercialisation in the core academic units of the university is the only way to
promote entrepreneurialism on a significant scale.
An OECD report recently stressed the risks associated with a commercialisation
model based on peripheral units:
A relatively large infrastructure of intermediary organisations has developed [T]he issue
at stake is whether excessive emphasis on specialised transfer agencies could monopolise
knowledge flows and act as a barrier to the creation of a positive knowledge culture
diffused throughout the industry-science nexus. In other words, is there a risk in consigning ISRs [industry-science relations] to peripheral units away from the core? (OECD 2002,
153)

The University of Newcastle, UK, provides an interesting example of organising

commercialisation activities at the core of academic enterprise, rather than in
peripheral units. The Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology (INSAT) at the

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50

J. Vestergaard

University of Newcastle was awarded status of National University Innovation Centre

for Nanotechnology in 2001. The new status was accompanied by a significant
amount of public funding. In and through its commercial arm, INEX, the University
Innovation Centre for Nanotechnology now acts not only as a centre for research
and training excellence of international repute, but also as a key, on-campus driver
for regional, high-technology based economics development.2 In its approach to
commercialisation of research, the University Innovation Centre for Nanotechnology
has developed a model quite different from traditional thinking in this field. The
model abandons the notion of technology transfer and the notion that university
interaction with industry should take place in intermediary structures, such as
science parks located more or less distant from the university itself. Instead, the
Newcastle concept argues that industry must be brought into the university. Only
then will new industries spin-off from the university on a significant scale. In the
INEX model the dual objective of (i) efficiently creating spin-off companies and (ii)
rapidly developing a more entrepreneurial culture at the university go hand in hand
withand mutually reinforceone another. The model takes as its point of departure recognition of a problem of scale. In the words of the research director, Ken
Snowdon:
High-flying academics in our universities are a source of novel and imaginative ideas,
however the absolute number of such academics is limited. Convert them all to spin-off
company technical directors and watch UK academic research output falter as they
concentrate their efforts on bringing just one idea to market. (Snowdon 2003)

The model developed at the University of Newcastle proposes, in other words, to base
commercialisation on a combination of the ideas of top-level researchers and the work
and effort of the constant flux of students that pass through university research departments.
Though anchored in the core academic units of the university, university entrepreneurship must be based on role separation, however. Researchers should not at the
same time be private entrepreneurs. Tuunainens case study powerfully illustrates the
conflicts and impediments to university entrepreneurship and commercialisation that
can be expected if the principle of role separation is violated. The role of the entrepreneur should be left to students and to private sector partners. In other words, the
researcher/entrepreneur separation should be maintained, but the research/commercialisation separation abandoned. This would break with a conflation that haunts
contemporary debates on the role of universities in knowledge economies. Much
reasoning in this field implicitlyand misguidedlyassumes that the following three
boundaries are coincident:

the public/private boundary,

the research/commercialisation boundary,
the researcher/entrepreneur boundary.

It is indeed possible to sidestep the public/private boundary and relax the research/
commercialisation boundary, and yet maintain the researcher/entrepreneur boundary.

Social Epistemology 51

I argue that the way to do this, briefly formulated, is to organise university entrepreneurship and commercialisation in accordance with the following simple principles:

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Organise universities as non-profit organisations, engage in collaborative research with

private sector partners in the core academic units of the university, but assign the role of
entrepreneurship and commercialisation to students and to private sector partners.

The role of the researcher in this model will be that of supervising the research and
ensuring that high academic standards are being met. It is noteworthy, that the model
adopted in the University Innovation Centre for Nanotechnology in Newcastle
complies with these principleswith the important exception that though student
entrepreneurship is encouraged, researchers themselves continue to be allowed to act
as private entrepreneurs as well. In the model I have proposed here, researchers are not
allowed to be entrepreneurs, neither in terms of ownership nor as directors of spin-off
companies. In terms of university governance, ensuring tenure for researchers would
be an important element in further strengthening the researcher/entrepreneur boundary, making the employment situation of researchers as independent as possible from
the outcomes of commercial research projects. A further step in the direction of
limiting without eliminating the financial interest of researchers in the outcomes of
commercial research projects would be to make royalty incomes something that goes
to a research department rather than to the individual researcher, to be shared on a
collective basis.
A model fully based on these principles, will be beneficial not only by retaining
academically gifted personnel in academic work, but also by ensuring that the
researcher has a high degree of autonomy in relation to the commercial interests of
such collaborative research. In countries with a tradition for mixing the researcher
and entrepreneur rolessuch as the US and the UKproblems with manipulation
of research results to promote commercial interests are likely to be reduced significantly by adopting this mode of organising university entrepreneurship and
commercialisation.3
While commercial and research interests may not always be in conflict, it is impossible to predict in advance in which cases they will be and in which not. One could
see the separation of researcher and entrepreneur roles as an insurance arrangement. Insurances are taken not on the basis of an expectation that an accident will
occur, but as a precautionary arrangement to limit the damage on your life if it
should occur. Similarly, the separation of roles would not be based on the expectation that any research commercialisation project will be prone to conflicting
commercial and research interests, but would be established as a precautionary
arrangement that will limit the damage on research and on the university institution
and its employees, if such conflicts do arise. It is important to stress that it is not
claimed that the model proposed eliminates the financial interests of researchers and
universities in the commercialisation of research, but rather that it makes arrangements that ensure that the financial interests of the senior researcher are marginal in
comparison with his academic interests in the project. Moreover, it is not claimed
that the model proposed eliminates conflicts altogether; but it does suggest that

52

J. Vestergaard

severe conflicts as those depicted in the CropCorp study will be avoided. Finally, it
needs to be emphasised that the model proposed, in addition to safe-guarding
against this type of conflict, is designed to preserve the integrity of science while at
the same time allowing for large-scale commercialisation activities at the core of the
academic enterprise.

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5. Concluding Remarks
Tuunainens case study is a fascinating one. The University of Helsinki had enthusiastically ventured in to developing support structures for university entrepreneurship
and commercialisation of research, responding to contemporary political ideas about
the need to involve universities more actively in the economic development of their
regions. Yet, the actual attempt by Professor Monto to form a spin-off company was
met with severe resistance from university management. The case study reflects an
inherent dilemma in the attempt to make universities more entrepreneurial. There is a
desire for society to benefit more from public science, but a resistance to allowing
university researchers to take the role of the academic entrepreneur upon themselves.
In a sense, it leaves public scientists in an impossible situation: on one hand, science for
its own sake is no longer legitimate, and on the other hand, becoming academic entrepreneurs, engaging in public science driven by commercial interests and financial
incentives is also illegalised. On closer scrutiny, however, there is a way out of this
seeming deadlock. It is indeed possible to relax the research versus commercialisation
boundary, and yet maintain the researcher versus entrepreneur boundary. This can be
achieved by ensuring tenure for researchers, allowing only collective royalties, and
organising university entrepreneurship and commercialisation in accordance with the
following simple principles:

Organise universities as non-profit organisations, engage in collaborative research with

private sector partners in the core academic units of the university, but assign the role of
entrepreneurship and commercialisation to students and to private sector partners.

In Tuunainens judgement, the relocation of business ventures into incubators

effectively protects the core academic departments from direct entrepreneurial influence (2005, 20203). The risk is, however, that assigning university entrepreneurship
and commercialisation efforts to auxiliary units in the periphery of the university will
in fact protect core academic departments too effectively from such influence so as
to, as the OECD puts it, monopolise knowledge flows and act as a barrier to the
creation of a positive knowledge culture diffused throughout the industry-science
nexus (2002, 153). The risk in other words, is that by building intermediary structures
to promote university entrepreneurship and commercialisation, the low degree of
interaction between universities and industry is institutionalised rather than ameliorated. If an integrative model based on the principles outlined in this paper were to
replace strategies based on intermediary institutions and peripheral units as the key
change agents in commercialisation of research, it would certainly be more justified to
speak of an entrepreneurial university.

Social Epistemology 53

Acknowledgements
Previous versions of this paper were presented at the 5th Winter Workshop on Philosophy and Economics, April 2005, in Madrid, and at the Triple Helix Conference,
May 2005, in Turin. Comments on earlier versions of the paper from Thomas Basbll,
Nicolai Foss, Camilla Kvist, Tobias Lindeberg, Steen Vallentin and an anonymous
reviewer are gratefully acknowledged.
Notes
[1]

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[2]
2

[3]
3

The case study constitutes the core of Tuunainens PhD research, published in full length in
Tuunainen (2004).
For more information on INSAT and INEX, see their respective web-sites: http://
www.ncl.ac.uk/insat/, and http://www.inex.org.uk/default.asp.
For analysis of conflicts and tensions in relation to industry-science collaborations and the
formation of spin-off companies in the UK see Rappert and Webster (1997) and Senker
(1990).

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