The emergence of entrepreneurial ideas at universities in times of demographic change: evidence from Germany

Abstract

The recent demographic trends in Western Europe imply tremendous structural change and are likely to heavily impact regional development. Against this background, we focus on entrepreneurial activities at universities and analyze regional and university specific determinants of the emergence of university entrepreneurship across regions that are differently challenged by demographic change. We underpin this quantitative assessment with interviews conducted in six case study regions with university staff responsible for technology transfer and the promotion of entrepreneurship to get some tentative insights about the perception of how demographic change might impact the entrepreneurial potential of universities. The results demonstrate that regional population decline is negatively related to entrepreneurial activities at universities. Furthermore, even university start-ups whose business idea is driven by detecting market opportunities related to demographic change are not more likely to emerge in regions that are especially challenged by demographic change. Finally, our interviews suggested that demographic change seems to play no role in the day-today work of technology transfer offices.

Ageing by feet? Regional migration, neighbourhood choice and local demographic change in German cities

“…Existing studies agree that in Germany ageing so far has coincided with an increase in regional disparities due to co‐agglomeration of high‐skilled and younger individuals (Buch, Hamann, & Niebuhr, ; Gregory & Patuelli, ; Piontek & Wyrwich, ). Similarly, Glaeser, Saiz, Burtless and Strange (: 85) find with respect to city growth in the United States between 1980 and 2000: “High skilled areas have been getting more populous, better paid, and more expensive.”…”

Aging and regional productivity growth in Germany

“… 2014 ). A variety of studies 3 find an inversely U‑shaped relationship between aging and innovation, start-up rates or firm dynamics while Piontek and Wyrwich ( 2017 ) report a negative effect of aging on entrepreneurial activities at universities in Germany.…”

Individual and Contextual Influences on the Start-up Inclination of Women Academics

“…This is mainly because the commercialization of research is seen as an important driver of transfer from research to society; thus, consequently affecting societal development and contributing to significant innovation (Grimaldi et al, 2011;Iffländer et al, 2018). While numerous studies have examined academic entrepreneurial behavior (e.g., Krabel and Müller, 2009;Haeussler and Colyvas, 2011;Fritsch and Krabel, 2012;Grimm and Jaenicke, 2012;Perkmann et al, 2013;Kolb and Wagner, 2015;Piontek and Wyrwich, 2017;Lehmann and Stockinger, 2019;Goethner and Wyrwick, 2020;Greven et al, 2020;Dohse et al, 2021), the research on the entrepreneurial behavior of female scientists has received limited attention in the literature. The data on academic entrepreneurship of female scientists are scarce (Iffländer et al, 2018), suggesting that, among the academic entrepreneurs, women are still a minority based on studies of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries (Rosa and Dawson, 2006;Polkowska, 2013;Best et al, 2016;Lawton-Smith et al, 2017).…”