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Creating Entrepreneurial Universities: Organizational Pathways of Transformation (Issues in Higher Education) (Issues in Higher Education) (Advances in Learning and Instruction Series)

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Clark explores the difficulties experienced in Europe in the 90s, when many universities tried to encourage entrepreneurial spinoffs. An American reader, who perhaps might have a background in the US university system, can read this slim book and see many parallels to American efforts.

The book looks at policies made at the level of the European Union, to spur more risk taking by academics. In part, this was a recognition that far too little was being exploited of the vast sums annually spent on research and development.

Case studies are explained of Chalmers [in Sweden] and Strathclyde [in Britain]. Incubators were made, to facilitate an easier transition for startups to leave the universities. We see that the efforts of far sighted individuals at the top levels of the university administrations was vital in providing a spur to change.

But the book also has another aspect. It points out that knowledge production vastly expanded compared to earlier decades. And one inescapable result was the proliferation of demand for more academic resources - people, equipment and space. So aside from startups, this aspect of academia is investigated, albeit briefly. No solution is offered, but it is posited that the danger exists of a university being stretched too thin in its intellectual foundings.

Looking back from today [2011], the universities seem to have survived and mostly thrived. And knowledge keeps increasing...