The recent spread of the 'entrepreneurial university' model has been accompanied by active government policies to support commercialisation of academic research and various forms of engagement with non-academic communities. This raises questions about whether this policy drive may constitute isomorphic forces for universities to follow certain organisational pathways, leading to a uniform 'one-size-fits-all' model of the university third mission activities. By looking at the case of English higher education, this paper addresses the tension between external isomorphic forces and the heterogeneous nature of knowledge exchange activities at individual universities. The paper adopts an 'institutional logic' perspective to explain the heterogeneous pathways that organisations take in response to external environments and their own strategic choices. It draws from qualitative documentary analysis of the third mission institutional strategies of universities, as well as data from the Higher Education Business Community Interaction Survey (HEBCI), to better understand the complex and intertwined contexts of universities' missions, strategies and perceived external environments. Against the 'one-size-fit-all' isomorphic pressures, each university creates their own approaches and models of third mission by targeting different areas of activities, partners and geographical areas, and by combining different set of missions, capabilities and resources. However, there is a significant variety in the extent to which individual HEIs can actually implement these strategies by generating unique internal capabilities. Keywords: Third Mission, university strategies and missions, institutional change Agrawal, A., Henderson, R. 2002. Putting patents in context: exploring knowledge from MIT. Management Science, 48(1):44-60. Barney, J.B. 2001. Resource -based theories of competitive advantage: A ten-year retrospectuve on the resource-based view. Journal of Management,

International audienceThis paper constitutes a policy analysis of university knowledge transfer-related initiatives in the devolved regions of Scotland and Wales. Both regions are seeking to develop science-based innovation strategies in which universities play a central role. Scotland appears fairly well advanced in this regard, whilst in Wales the establishment of regional networks linking actors has been more problematic to establish. It is concluded that whilst devolution has facilitated significant supply-side intervention, future intervention will require a stimulus in the demand for university knowledge. Furthermore, policies will be required to pay more attention to the global environment within which knowledge flows

A recent call has urged to broaden the conceptualization of university entrepreneurship in order to appreciate the heterogeneity of contexts and actors involved in the process of entrepreneurial creation. A gap still persists in the understanding of the variety of ventures generated by different academic stakeholders, and the relationships between these entrepreneurial developments and university missions, namely, teaching and research. This paper addresses this particular gap by looking at how university teaching and research activities influence universities' entrepreneurial ventures such as academic spin-offs and graduate start-ups. Empirically, we analyse the English higher education sector, drawing on institutional data at the university level. First, we explore the ways in which teaching and research activities are configured, and secondly, we examine how such configurations relate to academic spin-offs and graduate start-ups across different universities over time. Our findings suggest, first, that the evolution of USOs and graduate start-ups exhibit two different pathways over time; and second, that teaching and research both affect entrepreneurial ventures but their effect is different.

This paper examines the links developing between universities and their regions as observed in the UK. It highlights interactions between public policy and institutional behaviour in a multi-level governance (MLG) structure at sub-national, national and European levels. Different strategic processes of networking between universities and the developing links with the Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) in nine English regions are illustrated, in light of the recent government policies which influence the resources and strategies of universities. Universities' wide range of activities and strategies at different geographical levels need to be strategically incorporated as part of regional innovation systems.

Entrepreneurial ecosystems are the focus of government economic policies around the world for their potential to generate entrepreneur-led economic development. The paper identifies key research questions and challenges to building effective public policy: (i) the limitations of existing data sources, (ii) the need to balance findings from quantitative and qualitative studies, (iii) the danger that entrepreneurial ecosystems will be just a policy fad, (iv) the narrow focus of policy and research on high tech firms and scale-ups, and (v) the need to balance research approaches between simplified models and a complex systems approach. There is a need for a better understanding of the diversity of policy contexts (level of government, country context) and model of ecosystem governance. A more granulated understanding of ecosystem thinking is required, with greater consideration of the diversity of actors and the institutional context, with more attention given to the heterogeneous nature of places and complex interactions between actors and networks. Looking to the future, the potential of new data sources and methodologies is identified. Future research should give greater consideration to the institutional context to understand how policy can better support entrepreneurial activity and the extent to which specific policies can be replicated elsewhere.