Entrepreneurial Universities: Socioeconomic Impacts of Academic Entrepreneurship in a European Region

In the knowledge economy, academic entrepreneurship occurs at the boundaries of different scientific and professional backgrounds, creating a need for support mechanisms to transcend those limits. The entrepreneurial university is seen as an important catalyst for regional economic and social development, particularly because it generates and exploits knowledge as entrepreneurial opportunities. However, evidence about this phenomenon is fragmented and disorganized. By adopting institutional economics, resource-based view, and endogenous growth approaches, this study provides a better understanding of the socioeconomic impacts of the entrepreneurial university. Using the case study methodology, the study presents the experience of entrepreneurial universities in a European Region (Catalonia, Spain). It describes some practical implications that could stimulate the entrepreneurial activity of universities and thus foster their contribution to the development of the modern knowledge economy