The Entrepreneurial University - A review of best practices

The Entrepreneurial University
A Review of Best Practices
Entrepreneurship Development Institute
(An autonomous society of the Government of Tamil Nadu)
Parthasarathy Koil Street, SIDCO Industrial Estate, Guindy,
Chennai-600032, Tamil Nadu, INDIA
Web : www.editn.in , Email: dir@editn.in

The Entrepreneurial University – a collection of best practices
“Culture and attracting the right talent are also why we are
moving from suburban Conecticut to downtown Boston.
Its an ecosystem made by and for innovation.
In Boston, we can be challenged by
a doctor from MassGen or a student from MIT.
We need to be in this environment.”
Jeff Immelt
Chairman, GE
Entrepreneurship Development Institute – Tamil Nadu 2

CONTENTS
Foreword
1. Importance of Entrepreneurship and Innovation for Tamil Nadu
1. Entrepreneurship: Global Scenario
2. Entrepreneurship Ecosystems
3. The Global Entrepreneurship Index 2017
4. Importance of Entrepreneurship, Innovation & MSMEs
5. Tamil Nadu Vision 2023
6. Vision 2023: Growth Strategies
7. Making Tamil Nadu the Knowledge Capital & Innovation Hub
2. Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Universities & Colleges
1. Inclusive Campuses: Entrepreneurship focused students get support
2. US Department of Commerce Study on Entrepreneurial Universities
3. EDI Strategic Plan 2016-21 for E&I in Higher Educational Institutions
3. Building an Entrepreneurial Innovation Ecosystem in Institutions
1. Reinventing education: Top management E&I Vision
2. Attributes of an Entrepreneurial HEI
3. Throwing open doors: Building partnerships with E&I stakeholders
4. Breaking internal silos: Creating cross functional faculty teams
5. Incentivising E&I: Defining Institutional Entrepreneurship & Innovation policies
6. Walking the Talk: Committing faculty, space, funds, equipment
7. Building an Alumni network: Survey, Connect & Tap
8. Training the Trainers: Building a breed of entrepreneurial teachers
9. Creating E&I beehives in Campus: Incubators and Accelerators
10.Hiring Top Guns: Attracting PIO Innovators & Scientists as faculty
11.Stop re-inventing the wheel: Learn from Best Practices
12.The Entrepreneurial University : A Learning Organisation
4. Student-Entrepreneur Competency Development Processes
1. Competency assessment & Self Awareness
2. Entrepreneurship awareness & exposure
3. Courses on Entrepreneurship & Innovation
4. Experiential and Applied learning
5. Learning to compete : Ideation contests & Hackathons
6. Supporting Chain reactions: Entrepreneurship Spaces
7. Supporting Chain reactions: Critical mass through Entrepreneurship Dorms
8. Freedom unLimited: Innovation Spaces : Fablabs & Hacker spaces
9. Startup Internships
10.Student Entrepreneurship & Innovation Club
11.Picking the winners & Investing
12.Guiding the novice: Technology & Business Mentoring
5. Catalysing Innovation
1. Promoting Faculty innovation and entrepreneurship
2. Transforming to anEcosystem: Collaborations & Partnerships
3. Faculty engagement with industry
4. Building lasting University-industry partnerships
5. Growing R&D centres of Excellence
6. Setting up University Research Parks
7. Reducing barriers to IP commercialisation: Technology Transfer Office (TTO)
8. Instituting IP rights and royalties policies
9. Shrinking the funding gap
10. Think product (not project): Design Thinking & Product Development

6. Engaging in regional and local economic development efforts.
1. Re-igniting the local economy
2. Smart Manufacturing & Smart Products : Industry 4.0
3. Engaging with local small businesses, MSMEs and Startups
4. Advisory services & consultancies for MSMEs
5. Infusing Technology into MSME Industry Clusters
6. Enhancing skills for local business
7. Social Impact Entrepreneurship
8. Engage in catalysing local economy
9. Linking Local communities to National and International networks
10.Joint research programs with Large industry, MSMEs & Startups
7. Monitoring Processes & Evaluating Outcomes
1. Setting up indicators: HE Innovate
2. Setting up Indicators: UK-NCEE EU Scorecard
3. Outcome Indicators and Ranking
References

Foreword
Entrepreneurs play an important role in the economic development of a country. Successful
entrepreneurs innovate, bring new products and concepts to the market, improve market
efficiency and create new value for customers and shareholders in the market. Entrepreneurs,
according to Joseph Schumpeter, are responsible for creative destruction. They are the real drivers
economic growth and employment.
Creation of entrepreneurship of such higher order would require Universities and Higher
education institutions (HEI) to include entrepreneurship and innovation as a part of their vision
and therefore embed, support and grow an entrepreneurship and innovation culture among
management, faculty and students. This transformation, into what we may call the entrepreneurial
university, would lead to wide ranging external collaborations and partnerships and enthusiasm to
engage even with the smallest economic and social entrepreneurs inside and outside the campus.
In the field of teaching and learning, entrepreneurial pedagogies would be embedded in each
department across the university while students and externals would be actively engaged in
curriculum design and assessment processes. There would be multiple opportunities to learn by
doing and reflect conceptually. Student entrepreneurial societies would be strongly supported as
would social enterprise hubs and given encouragement to lead entrepreneurial venturing of all
kinds. Overall, in research and teaching the entrepreneurial university will encourage the crossing
of disciplinary boundaries perhaps leading to new trans-disciplinary departments. National
Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship (NACIE) comprising of 141 Universities in the
US has identified five areas where universities were supporting innovation and entrepreneurship :
• Promoting student innovation and entrepreneurship,
• Encouraging faculty innovation and entrepreneurship,
• Actively supporting university technology transfer,
• Facilitating university-industry collaboration, and
• Engaging in regional and local economic development efforts.
Top management, including Vice Chancellors, have a very critical role to play in developing
a vision for Universities and HEIs. Enunciating this vision for E&I into a coherent policy, that cuts
across the campus and the economic region surrounding the campus, is the foundation for an
Entrepreneurial University. They also have the role of allocating resources, providing leadership
and monitoring progress.
Teachers have a central role, as they have a strong impact on the attainment of learners.
Reflective teachers keep their practice under constant review and adjust it in the light of desired
learning outcomes and of the individual needs of students. As a key competence, entrepreneurship
does not necessarily involve a specific school subject. Rather, it requires a way of teaching in which

experiential learning and project work have a main role. Teachers do not provide students with the
answers, but help them to research and identify the right questions and find the best answers. To
inspire their pupils and students, and to help them develop an enterprising attitude, teachers need
a wide range of competences related to creativity and entrepreneurship; they require a college
environment where creativity and risk-taking are encouraged, and mistakes are valued as a
learning opportunity. Developing competences of school leaders and teaching staff — including
aspiring new teachers should be the absolute priority.
I trust that this publication, a collection of varied experiences across India and the world,
will spur HEIs to enlarge their profile to an E&I ecosystem and finally to a Regional E&I Hub. I hope
that emergence of local leadership collectives as those seen in other countries like Association of
University Technology Managers, Industry-Institute Collaboration Platforms like the Triple Helix
Association, College Incubators Association, etc., will help cross-learning and documentation of
best practices.
EDI has been enlarging its engagement with Universities, Colleges, Polytechnics and ITIs in
recent years. EDI-TN has launched the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development Program
(IEDP) that currently is rolled out in 170 engineering, arts & science colleges and polytechnics in
partnership with Wadhwani Foundation - National Entrepreneurship Network (WF-NEN). Lasting
changes will come about by unleashing powerful processes within campuses – those of E&I
visioning, ecosystem development, competency development and innovation promotion.
This document is not original work and draws heavily from the documents cited as
reference and only serves as a curated collection of connected literature. I am deeply grateful for
the referred authors for their wisdom.
This review is a culmination of the excitement sparked off within me consequent to my
interactions & wanderings over the last 10 months with WF-NEN, IIT-Madras Bio Incubator &
Incubation Cell, University Innovation Biotech Cluster of Anna University, Biotech department of
Madurai Kamaraj University, Kumaraguru College of Technology, PSG-STEP, TREC-STEP, Translational
Research Platform in Veterinary Biology in TANUVAS, Research department & V-ClinBio in Sri
Ramachandra Medical University, VIT Incubator in Vellore, CeNTAB Sastra University, Thyagarajar
College of Engg, Madurai, T-Hub in Hyderabad, etc. I am deeply grateful to Mr. Asgar Ahmed and
Mrs Vishnu Priya of WF-NEN, Dr. K Sankaran of AU-UIC, Dr. Guhan Jayaraman of IITM-Bio, Dr.
Suresh Kumar of PSG-STEP, Dr Dhinkar Raj of TRPVB, Mr. R.M.P. Jawahar of TREC-STEP, Dr Lakshmi
Meera of KCT, Dr. S. Swaminathan of CeNTAB, Dr. Balaji of TCE, Madurai, etc., for throwing light on
great work their institutions have been doing in E&I. I also thank Mrs. Shajeevana, Additional
Director for her support in getting this publication off the block.
Chennai K. Rajaraman
2.1.2017 Principal Secretary & Director, EDI-TN
dir@editn.in

1. Importance of Entrepreneurship
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the
ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds
in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
-- Mark Twain
Entrepreneurship: Global scenario
Entrepreneurship is considered an important mechanism that promotes economic development
through employment, innovation, and welfare, but it does not appear like manna from heaven as a
country moves through the stages of development. Rather, it plays a role in all development stages
and is a process that continues over many years. Economists have come to recognize the “input-
competing” and “gap-filling” capacities of entrepreneurial activity in development. In other words,
someone has to create the technology for new products and create the markets where people will
buy them.
Two points are important when thinking about entrepreneurship and development. First, contrary
to popular belief, most entrepreneurial countries in the world are not those that have the most
entrepreneurs. This notion is in fact misleading. In fact, the highest self-employment rates are in
low-income countries such as Zambia and Nigeria. This is because low-income economies lack the
human capital and infrastructure needed to create high quality jobs. The result is that many people
sell soft drinks and fruit on street corners, but there are few innovative, high-growth startups. Nor
do these street vendors represent business ownership as defined in many developed countries.
In entrepreneurship, quality matters more than quantity. To be entrepreneurial, a country needs to
have the best entrepreneurs, not necessarily the most. What the “best and the brightest” do is
important, and to support their efforts, a country needs a well-functioning entrepreneurial
ecosystem. The path to development is to create efficient organizations able to harness technology
to increase output and improve the lives of millions.
An entrepreneur is a person with the vision to see an innovation and the ability to bring it to
market. Most small business owners on main-street in the United States or in the markets of most
cities around the world are not entrepreneurs according to this definition. If you walk down the
streets of every city of this world you will see street vendors selling the fare of every country in the
world. Few of these establishments are entrepreneurial by our definition, because there is nothing
new about them. Most of these people are traders or shop owners, performing a sort of small
business management. Now these people are important, because they create jobs and income for
their families. But we want to make a distinction here between the small business owner who
replicates what others are doing and an entrepreneur who innovates.

Our definition of entrepreneurship is driven not by necessity entrepreneurship but by opportunity.
Opportunity entrepreneurship is positively correlated with economic growth. Entrepreneurs
envision scalable, high-growth businesses. They also possess the ability to make those visions a
reality. They get things done. They go over, under and around obstacles. This is borne out in the
relationship observed between regulation and these two categories of entrepreneurs: regulation
holds back replicative entrepreneurs but does not have the same impact on opportunity
entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs are the bridge between invention and commercialization. Invention
without entrepreneurship stays in the university lab or the R&D facility. Entrepreneurs like Steve
Jobs and Bill Gates commercialize other people’s inventions. This vision of entrepreneurship
actually delivers a product to customers.
Some businesses have a larger impact on markets, create more new jobs, and grow faster and
become larger than others. The Gobal Entrepreneurship Development Institute (GEDI) takes into
account the fact that entrepreneurship plays a different role at different stages of development.
Considering all of these possibilities and limitations, GEDI defines entrepreneurship as “the
dynamic, institutionally embedded interaction between entrepreneurial attitudes, entrepreneurial
abilities, and entrepreneurial aspirations by individuals, which drives the allocation of resources
through the creation and operation of new ventures.”
Entrepreneurship Ecosystems
Entrepreneurs grow, multiply businesses and thrive in what are essentially entrepreneurial
ecosystems, though they some may survive in inhospitable or less hospitable environments, too.
Entrepreneurial ecosystems are composed of sub-systems (pillars) that are aggregated into systems
(sub- indices) that can be optimized for system performance at the ecosystem level. There is a
growing recognition in the entrepreneurship literature that entrepreneurship theory focused only
on the entrepreneur may be too narrow. The concept of systems of entrepreneurship is based on
three important premises that provide an appropriate platform for analyzing entrepreneurial
ecosystems. First, entrepreneurship is fundamentally an action undertaken and driven by agents
on the basis of incentives. Second, the individual action is affected by an institutional framework
conditions. Third, entrepreneurship ecosystems are complex, multifaceted structures in which
many elements interact to produce systems performance, thus, the index method needs to allow
the constituent elements to interact. However because the elements are different in each case
there is no one size fits all solution. Each one is bespoke.
The entrepreneurial ecosystem is a new way to contextualize the increasingly complex and
interdependent social systems being created. Entrepreneurial ecosystems at the socio-economic
level have properties of self-organization, scalability and sustainability as “…dynamic institutionally
embedded interaction between entrepreneurial attitudes, abilities and aspirations, by individuals,
which drives the allocation of resources through the creation and operation of new ventures.”
Entrepreneurial Ecosystems are complex socio-economic structures that are brought to life by

individual-level-action. Much of the knowledge relevant for entrepreneurial action is embedded in
ecosystem structures and requires individual-level-action to extract it. Nascent and new
entrepreneurs are at the heart of the system. Nascent entrepreneurs are individuals in the process
of launching a new venture. These entrepreneurs represent a sub-set of the adult population in a
given country. The attitudes that prevail within the wider population influence who chooses to
become an entrepreneur. Nascent and new entrepreneurs are characterized by varying degrees of
ability and entrepreneurial aspirations.
The Entrepreneurship Ecosystem
The Global Entrepreneurship Index
The Global Entrepreneurship Index is an important tool to help countries accurately assess and
evaluate their entrepreneurship ecosystem and its effectiveness in creating more jobs.
Entrepreneurship is widely understood as a means of “growing the pie”—that is, increasing
economic activity to create more jobs and produce more income for more people, rather than
merely transferring wealth from one group to another.
The pillars of entrepreneurship in the ecosystem are many and complex. While a widely accepted
definition of entrepreneurship is lacking, there is general agreement that the concept has
numerous dimensions. The Global Entrepreneurship Development Institute takes this into account
in creating the entrepreneurship index.
The GEI is composed of three building blocks or sub-indices—what we call the 3As: entrepreneurial
attitudes, entrepreneurial abilities, and entrepreneurial aspirations.

• Entrepreneurial attitudes are about how a country thinks about entrepreneurship. In fact,
what does your mother think about it? Does your local community value entrepreneurs, as
much it does a Government officer or a professional ? Do you network well?
• The second sub index is about abilities. Can you do it? Do you have the skills to understand
and adapt technology ? Can you devise strategies to beat competition ?
• The third sub index is about aspirations. Do you want to build a billion-dollar company? Are
you willing to explore a new product design? serve a new unexplored world market?
These three sub-indices stand on 14 pillars, each of which contains an individual and an
institutional variable that corresponds to micro and the macro-level aspects of entrepreneurship.
Unlike other indexes that incorporate only institutional or individual variables, the pillars of the GEI
include both. These pillars are an attempt to capture the open-ended nature of entrepreneurship;
analyzing them can provide an in depth view of the strengths and weaknesses of those listed in the
Index.
GEI is a three-component index that takes into account the different aspects of the entrepreneurial
ecosystem. However, all three components, called sub-indices, are in themselves complex
measures that include various characteristics of entrepreneurial attitudes, entrepreneurial abilities,
and entrepreneurial aspirations.
Entrepreneurial attitudes are societies’ attitudes toward entrepreneurship, which we define as a
population’s general feelings about recognizing opportunities, knowing entrepreneurs personally,
endowing entrepreneurs with high status, accepting the risks associated with business startups,
and having the skills to launch a business successfully. The benchmark individuals are those who
can recognize valuable business opportunities and have the skills to exploit them; who attach high
status to entrepreneurs; who can bear and handle startup risks; who know other entrepreneurs
personally (i.e., have a network or role models); and who can generate future entrepreneurial
activities.
Moreover, these people can provide cultural support, financial resources, and networking potential
to those who are already entrepreneurs or want to start a business. Entrepreneurial attitudes are
important because they express the general feeling of the population toward entrepreneurs and
entrepreneurship. Countries need people who can recognize valuable business opportunities, and
who perceive that they have the required skills to exploit these opportunities. Moreover, if
national, regional and local attitudes toward entrepreneurship are positive, cultural support,
financial support, and networking benefits will be available for those who want to start businesses.
Entrepreneurial abilities refer to the entrepreneurs’ characteristics and those of their businesses.
Different types of entrepreneurial abilities can be distinguished within the realm of new business
efforts. Creating businesses may vary by industry sector, the legal form of organization, and

demographics—age, education, etc. We define entrepreneurial abilities as startups in the medium-
or high-technology sectors that are initiated by educated entrepreneurs, and launched because of
a person being motivated by an opportunity in an environment that is not overly competitive.
(Source: Global Entrepreneurship Index 2017 : www.gedi.org )
Entrepreneurial aspiration reflects the quality aspects of startups and new businesses. Some
people just dislike their currently employment situation and want to be their own boss, while
others want to create the next Microsoft. Entrepreneurial aspiration is defined as the early-stage
entrepreneur’s effort to introduce new products and/or services, develop new production
processes, penetrate foreign markets, substantially increase their company’s staff, and finance
their business with formal and/or informal venture capital. Product and process innovation,
internationalization, and high growth are considered the key characteristics of entrepreneurship.
Each of these three building blocks of entrepreneurship influences the other two. For example,
entrepreneurial attitudes influence entrepreneurial abilities and entrepreneurial aspirations, while
entrepreneurial aspirations and abilities also influence entrepreneurial attitudes.

Entrepreneurship Ecosystem in India
India has a strong entrepreneurial ecosystem which is based largely on need, rather than
opportunity or innovation. India needs to create 1- 1.5 crore (10-15 million) jobs per year for the
next decade to provide gainful employment to its young population. Accelerating opportunity and
innovation driven entrepreneurship and business creation is crucial for such large-scale
employment generation. Moreover, innovation-driven opportunity entrepreneurship will help
generate solutions to India’s myriad social problems including high-quality education, affordable
health care, clean energy and waste management, and financial inclusion. Entrepreneurship-led
economic growth is also more inclusive and typically does not involve exploitation of natural
resources.
Large Indian businesses – both in the public and private sector – have not generated significant
employment in the past few decades and are unlikely to do so in the coming decade or two. Public
sector and government employment has declined in the last few years, and is expected to grow
very slowly in the coming years.
There are significant roadblocks that hold back and dampen entrepreneurial activity in India. The
country ranks low on comparative ratings across entrepreneurship, innovation and ease of doing
business. India is ranked 130 in a list of 190 countries, which points to need to massive
improvement (http://www.doingbusiness.org/rankings). The ecosystem for starting and running
new ventures has many gaps. Regulations and procedures are restrictive and time-consuming and
add significant cost for an emerging venture. Banks and financial institutions are wary of lending to
first-generation entrepreneurs and to MSMEs in general, due to various norms like tangible asset
coverage, DER etc., even though such enterprises make a major contribution to the economy,
employment, and exports. This imposes constraints on their credit absorption capacity and
consequently, growth. Established businesses have generally been passive in engaging with
emerging ventures. Educational institutions are yet to actively promote entrepreneurship over
employment. Lack of collaboration between all stakeholders leads to further roadblocks.
In the last few years, a lot of effort has gone into improving ease of doing business, improving
access to finance and working with Higher education Institutions helping commence the journey of
creating a better ecosystem for entrepreneurship and Innovation. Due to structural improvements
implemented and in the pipeline, India has jumped 29 places in the world ranking to 69th position
in the GEI 2017 rankings.
The profile of India’s entrepreneurial ecosystem is considerably less developed and more uneven
than those of the US and Japan. This pattern is typical of developing economies. The biggest
bottlenecks for the India’s ecosystem are observed in Startup Skills, Networking, Cultural Support,
and Technology Absorption. As a developing economy, India could make considerable progress
simply by addressing its basic framework conditions for entrepreneurial and economic activity,

such as the rule of law (i.e., equality, objectivity, and predictability in the application of laws, rules,
and regulations), equal access to markets, and human capital. It is likely that all developing
economies need to address such basic conditions, but the GEI analysis helps highlight specific
priority areas for India.
Highest gainers in the Global Entrepreneurship Index for 2017 (www.gedi.org )
The ability of entrepreneurs to create jobs is particularly relevant to India given its employment
crisis. India’s demographic dividend has been much touted. By 2020, 63% of India’ s population will
be of working age. McKinsey estimates that India’ s working-age population will grow by 69 million
between 2012 and 2022. Cashing in on this dividend will require India to create 69 million
additional appropriate jobs, as well as jobs for those that are currently unemployed. Creation of
new businesses will therefore be an important avenue for absorption of these workers. Therefore,
developing and sustaining a vibrant entrepreneurial fabric is one policy option that should be part
and parcel of any economic development plan.
The entrepreneurial culture in India is picking up. Number of entrepreneurial ventures remains
small relative to India’ s population. Only 0.09 companies were registered for every 1,000 working
age person-among the lowest rates of G20 countries in 2011. The Global Entrepreneurship monitor
that tracks entrepreneurial activity, found that new business ownership rate for India in 2013 was
the same as in 2008. As can be seen from the ecosystem snapshot from GEI, India needs to pay
attention on Opportunity Perception, Startup skills, Networking, Technology absorption, Risk
capital, etc. Compared to Hong Kong and China, India’s entrepreneurial ecosystem profile is
considerably less developed. There are, however, a number of bright spots. In Competition, India
performs more than twice as well as Hong Kong and China. India also scores well in Product
Innovation and Process Innovation. This combination of factors shows that India has placed itself
as a regional source of innovation. However, without improvements to its bottleneck factor,
Technology Absorption, further progress will be hamstrung.

GEI for US, Japan, India, China and HongKong (www.gedi.org)
Importance of Entrepreneurship, Innovation & MSMEs
Entrepreneurs play an important role in the economic development of a country. Successful
entrepreneurs innovate, bring new products and concepts to the market, improve market
efficiency, build wealth, create jobs, and enhance economic growth. De novo firms that unleash
creative destruction shift surpluses from rent-seeking large producers to consumers and broader
society. Joseph Schumpeter, one of the greatest economists of all time, put innovation at the heart
of economic theory and capitalism. He proposed that innovation was the process by which
economies were able to break out of their static mode and enter a path of dynamism. It was his
theory of “creative destruction” that first highlighted the importance of innovators in
revolutionizing the economic structure, leading to the creation of new products, services, and
markets, and the decay of the old. Just as boosting entrepreneurship can lead to growth and job
creation, failing to promote entrepreneurship can lead to stagnation, and social and economic
inertia.
Bringing about innovation has never been as important as today, as the global economy shifts away
from the industrial economy towards the innovation economy. Traditional manufacturing is
becoming increasingly commoditized while intellectual property is the need of the hour. What is
heartening is that recent economic theory suggests that government investment in R&D,
knowledge-creation, and technological progress does have a role to play in fuelling innovation,
productivity, capital creation, and therefore growth. This thinking highlights the scope for
appropriate government policy and investment to enable entrepreneurship and innovation.
While supporting young firms in technology and other new-age innovative sectors is important,
India also needs to develop an ecosystem that encourages innovation at more mature enterprises
across the industrial spectrum— across the existing manufacturing, export, and rural and social
enterprise sector. This segment has the capacity to generate a large number of jobs. For instance,
roughly 80% of jobs come from SMEs in Germany. In Korea, 90% of jobs are generated by SMEs. In

India, the SME sector employs only 40% of the countries workforce and contributes 8% to the
GDP, and is plagued by low productivity. This segment needs a boost. Tamil Nadu has the third
largest number of MSMEs in the country.
There is huge scope in bringing economically and socially disenfranchised (including the dalits,
scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, and other backward castes) and women into the economic
mainstream not only serves a higher purpose; there is also a strong economic and social
justification for the same. It would lead to greater stability in society in the years to come (a
benefit across all socio-economic strata), and would also open up a significant new market for
firms to tap. As such, it would substantially increase the proportion of the economy able to engage
in productive activity. Of course, these projections are predicated on “business as usual”
assumptions regarding entrepreneurial growth of new enterprises; were the latter to take off, the
growth might be much greater, especially in sectors like life sciences and automobiles with a global
“wind in the sails”.
Government policy that favours innovation can have significant impact on growth and job creation
in the economy, as indicated by economists that show innovation and productivity to be
endogenously generated. Furthermore, India has a latent science and engineering talent pool,
which may be particularly advantageous in a context where fewer graduates in Western countries
are opting for STEM (Science, Technology, and Engineering Majors) coursework. This strength
should be capitalised to generate indigenous intellectual capital.
Tamil Nadu Vision 2023
For growing GSDP at a sustained pace of 11% per annum for the next 11 years, all three sectors of
the economy, namely, Agriculture, Manufacturing and Services, need to grow at a high rate.
Agricultural output would need to grow by 5% per annum over the next 11 years despite no
increase in cultivable area; manufacturing sector would have to grow by about 14% per annum,
while the Service sector would grow at 11% per annum. Innovation is key to achieving such
ambitious growth rates and Vision 2023 envisions Tamil Nadu becoming the “Knowledge Capital”
and “Innovation Hub” of the country.
This requires the creation and nurturing of an appropriate atmosphere that aids innovation and
sustenance of knowledge. Some enabling conditions are:
(a) The establishment of a dynamic information infrastructure that increases the access to
information universally and makes decision making faster, transparent and efficient.
Ensuring that every youth of Tamil Nadu is sufficiently skilled at his/her job.
(b) Creation of an ecosystem of knowledge – including the physical availability of research
organisations, universities, think tanks, and business organisations whose success depends
on how information is converted to knowledge.

(c) Establish and strengthen ten or more centres of excellence in Tamil Nadu - these would
essentially be world class organisations that are at the cutting edge in their respective
domains. These domains include automotive, solar and clean technology, bio technology,
agricultural practices, water conservation, construction, life style diseases, aero space, basic
sciences and nano- technologies.
(d) An economic and institutional regime that incentivises creation of new knowledge and
entrepreneurship to use that knowledge
(e) An environment conducive for protecting Intellectual Property Rights and celebrating
success in innovations, thus fostering a risk taking culture.
(f) Setting up an innovation fund that rewards innovation by students, businesses, academic
institutions and others.
(g) Enhancing the ease of doing business, from a ranking of 18th
for Tamil Nadu
(http://eodb.dipp.gov.in/) substantially through a series of measures including removing
unnecessary bottlenecks and deployment of online clearances..
Vision 2023: Growth Strategies
The ten themes of Tamil Nadu Vision 2023 as described in the previous section are the aspirational
outcomes and enablers that are sought over the next 11 years. To achieve them, the Government
of Tamil Nadu will adopt multiple strategies that energise various slivers of the economy and
create a virtuous circle of enhanced competitiveness, efficiency and vibrancy in all sectors and
galvanise the citizens and other stakeholders to march towards the targets in unison. Strategy for
development is about building on the strengths of the state to exploit opportunities while
simultaneously protecting the vulnerabilities that could arise due to intrinsic weaknesses and
threats in the environment. Accordingly, Vision 2023 identifies ten thrust areas which form the
basis of acceleration in the economy and achievement of the long term goals. The relevant three
among the ten thrust areas are described below:
Strategic initiative 1 – Increasing the share of manufacturing in TN economy:
At present (2010-11), the composition of the GSDP of Tamil Nadu is Primary sector 12.6%,
Secondary sector 25.8% and Tertiary Sector 61.6%. Agriculture & allied activities comprise the bulk
of the Primary sector, while in the Secondary sector the break-up is Manufacturing sector (17%)
and Non-manufacturing sector (9%6). The Tertiary sector comprises a multitude of service
activities. Given the strong accent in Vision 2023 to accelerate growth in overall GSDP and per
capita incomes, it is imperative that all the three sectors grow at high rates.
Strategic initiative 2 - Making SMEs vibrant
1.11 The objective behind giving a big thrust to the manufacturing sector is to increase the
footprint of high value adding activities in the state in line with its natural and human endowments
and more importantly, to enhance the level of direct and indirect employment. A highly developed

manufacturing sector necessarily needs a vibrant and dynamic SME sector which forms the base
for providing essential goods and services. Therefore, one of the strategic initiatives underlying
Vision 2023 is to boost the creation and sustenance of several SME clusters across the state. This
will have the dual benefit of a geographically diversified growth in the state and high employment
generation, the latter being a characteristic of the SME sector. Even as of today, Tamil Nadu is one
of the leading bases for small businesses in India, with a leadehrship position in several industries
such as leather and leather goods, engineering goods, automotive components, castings, pumps
and readymade garments.
Strategic initiative 3 - Making TN Knowledge Capital and Innovation hub of India
Tamil Nadu is not amongst the lowest cost locations for manufacturing activities when compared
to many other states in India; neither is the demographic profile of Tamil Nadu’s workforce the
most favourable in India. Therefore, it is imperative for Tamil Nadu to enhance its factor
productivity significantly if it is to compete with other destinations in India and East Asia to grow
its investments, output and employment in manufacturing and service sectors. This enhanced
productivity can be achieved only if all organisations in Tamil Nadu make knowledge and
innovation the centrepiece of their activities. This thrust on innovation has to happen across the
board of economic activity in the state including services, manufacturing, agriculture,
administration, and financing. This needs coordinated and deliberate action along the following
lines:
(a) Ushering in a revolution in Skill Development aimed at skilling 20 million persons across the
state over the next 11 years
(b) Establishing best in class institutions as Centres of Excellence in various fields that will
attract the best talent from across the globe
(c) Fostering a social climate and institutional structure that will encourage free movement of
people to and from other states of India and other parts of the world.
Making Tamil Nadu the Knowledge Capital & Innovation Hub
Key steps that Government will take to make Tamil Nadu a hub for knowledge are as follows:
(a) Evaluate the major universities in the state across all disciplines and invest in revamping the
core assets and facilities, getting more qualified faculty, setting up new facilities that may
be required, and making the curriculum and pedagogy more up-to-date and relevant to the
disciplines in question.
(b) Establish with own resources and/ or with industry partnership about ten world class
institutions (Centres of Excellence) in different areas, which become nodes of research,
industry partnership, and innovation. These would be established by upgrading existing
centres of research and higher learning (where such a centre exists) and by establishing
new centres. The different areas of focus for their COEs would be in Automotive

technology, Solar and clean energy technology, Biotechnology, Agricultural practices, Water
resources management, Construction management, Lifestyle diseases, Aerospace, Basic
sciences, Nano technology and Social sciences.
(c) Creation of an adequate base of trained technical and managerial personnel with
competencies and skills across different sectors. Tamil Nadu will usher in a skills revolution
in the state by facilitating the education and training of about 20 million persons over the
next 11 years in different fields and to varying levels of expertise.
(d) A social climate and institutional structure that supports innovation. Government shall
encourage and support the immigration of people from other states and countries into
Tamil Nadu, especially those who bring skills and capabilities that are in short supply in the
state. Further Government will facilitate the establishment of a state-wide culture of
continuous dialogue and exchange of ideas among government, labour and business to
ensure a high degree of cooperation and mutual understanding. This is an essential
ingredient of an innovative culture, as innovation aims to bring change, which can
sometimes be disruptive, but still essential for development.
(e) Government could give a further boost to innovation by setting up an Innovation fund that
works at several levels to foment innovation in the state. For instance, it could formulate a
scheme at schools in the state in terms of awarding prizes for the best 50 innovations from
school students each year. The Innovation fund could institute awards for the best three
innovations from business firms, academic institutions, NGOs, etc. The objective is to
sensitise professionals and society at large on the upside of innovation, which can improve
life on a day to day basis.
Initiating, supporting and strengthening Entrepreneurship & Innovation Development processes in
Universities and colleges will contribute significantly to the rise of Tamil Nadu as the Knowledge
Hub of India.

2. Entrepreneurship, Innovation & Universities
“My biggest motivation? Just to keep challenging myself. I see life almost like one long University
education that I never had — everyday I’m learning something new.”
- Richard Branson
As elaborated in the preceding chapter, the innovation infrastructure and entrepreneurial culture
of a country are often regarded as a country’s greatest national advantages in an increasingly
competitive world. This innovation infrastructure includes universities and colleges, research
institutions, laboratories, and startup companies. The quality of these ecosystems has attracted
many of the world’s best and brightest people to pursue careers in R&D and innovation in such
countries. Many of these same minds become leaders and entrepreneurs across these nations –
creating cutting-edge innovation products and services and building our great companies. As
nations compete with each other for leadership in innovation, colleges and universities are doing
their part to maintain our leadership and to nurture more innovation, create processes and
programs to commercialize innovations, and promote entrepreneurship as a viable career path for
students. Universities use different approaches to encourage innovative thinking.
Their approaches depend on their local environment and objectives, which in turn varies on
geography, institutional size, history, culture, and funding resources. This diversity of approaches is
proving to be both appropriate and successful for universities and colleges as they seek to create
academic and economic benefits through innovation and entrepreneurship.
The Innovative & Entrepreneurial Higher Education Institution
A useful working definition of the entrepreneurial higher education institution (HEI) has been
provided by Gibb (2013): “Entrepreneurial higher education institutions are designed to empower
staff and students to demonstrate enterprise, innovation and creativity in research, teaching and
pursuit and use of knowledge across boundaries. They contribute effectively to the enhancement of
learning in a societal environment characterised by high levels of uncertainty and complexity and
they are dedicated to creating public value via a process of open engagement, mutual learning,
discovery and exchange with all stakeholders in society – local, national and international.”
Entrepreneurial
(Attitudes, Aspirations, Abilities)
Innovation
(Processes, Incentives,
Systems, Structures)
Value
Economic Value
Societal Value
Cultural Value
Technological Value

Prof. Paul Hannon defines the entrepreneurial university in simpler terms as: “An institution that
creates an environment, within which the development of entrepreneurial mind-sets and
behaviours are embedded, encouraged, supported, incentivised and rewarded”.
Inclusive campuses: Entrepreneurship-focused students get support
Colleges and universities are nurturing innovation and entrepreneurship in unique ways - from
creating educational value and outlets for their students to providing new economic opportunities
for their local economies. A large number of colleges and universities offer practical
entrepreneurship programs. Although universities are starting at different places, their ability to
mobilize their communities to become entrepreneurial is vital in creating a legion of high-growth
startups. By engaging a broad yet diverse swath of the university community (students, faculty,
alumni, local business and civic leaders) in entrepreneurship activities, universities and colleges
aim to catalyze more solutions to major societal and economic problems–from inside and outside
the lab–and to create an infrastructure supporting startup creation. Research universities in
particular, are creating a culture of student and faculty entrepreneurship and seeking greater
industry collaboration and commercialization of new technologies from their R&D efforts.
Universities are expanding beyond being primarily providers of innovation for their communities to
also being a partner in vibrant local and regional ecosystems that include other universities,
National labs, startup companies, accelerators, and state and local organizations and improving
access to public infrastructure. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) measures the
economic value created by companies started by or affiliated with their alumni. In addition to
creating tremendous economic value around the world, MIT found that nearly one-third of their
entrepreneurs were not engineers, but from other disciplines, reflecting the broad-based nature of
high growth innovation.
Fortunately, in many industries a combination of innovation and development of new business
models has drastically reduced the cost of starting and building a company. Startups can launch
and grow quickly without necessarily depending on large quantities of elusive venture capital. This
change has been well documented and is facilitated by the emergence of cloud computing; the
ability to find contract partners to manage administrative services, such as payroll, human
resources, and accounting; the growth of micro-targeted “apps” for a wide variety of needs; the
ability to use social media for targeted marketing; and access to inexpensive credit. Finally, the rise
of “Do-It-Yourself” prototyping companies and affordable 3-D printers has led to a flourishing
community of startup manufacturers that can leverage these tools to create and market products
in a customized, but scalable, manner. These low-cost opportunities are being embraced effusively
by college students as they “bootstrap” their businesses while continuing to be students.

The initiative being supported in this document does not intend to turn every student into an
entrepreneur. On the contrary, it only aims to create a support system that does not discriminate
between entrepreneurial or managerial aspirations of students. It is also interesting to note that
promoting and supporting entrepreneurial initiatives of students would enable them to be better
industry managers who are intrapreneurs within their organisations. Organisations worldwide, in
their own interest, are encouraging intrapreneurial aspirations of employees and even provide
independent and flexible innovation spaces for such intrapreneurial employees. So even if students
do not become entrepreneurs, they can create value through their intrapreneurial drive and
initatives.
A McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) report on entrepreneurship indicated that there are three pillars
to the platform that enables innovation and entrepreneurship to flourish, and universities are
increasingly driving or involved in each of these factors: developing fertile innovation ecosystems,
creating an entrepreneurial culture, and providing sustained financing for new ventures.
• Foremost, creating an innovation ecosystem is critical for the long-term success and quality
of entrepreneurial activity. It is important to have a strong local base for entrepreneurship
that is supported by regional economic development plans. Colleges and universities often
are the centerpiece of regional economic development strategies because they are often
the main the source of innovation, but also train the local talent base and workforce, and
can connect various actors to drive a common agenda.
• Secondly, they often push for cultural change on their campuses and within their
communities, which sustains the innovation ecosystem. This includes everything from
targeted entrepreneurship education to greater ties with local industry, such as licensing
technologies locally.
• The third factor suggested by the McKinsey report is the importance of available financing,
in particular, early-stage and sustained financing. While colleges and universities
traditionally have not provided financing for company startups, they have begun creating
their own investment funds to support their home-grown entrepreneurs. Sometimes these
funds are created through university endowments, specialized donations, or sponsorships.
In addition, many university leaders have called upon the federal government to create
funding and other assistance programs to fund the “valley of death” that innovative
technologies face before their business model is clear. This has become very important to
the major public research universities – many of whom are not based in major urban areas.

US Department of Commerce study on Entrepreneurial Universities
A study of several US Universities revealed that the following five categories reflect the widespread
importance of innovation and entrepreneurship to the mission and activities of higher education.
• Promoting student innovation and entrepreneurship,
• Encouraging faculty innovation and entrepreneurship,
• Actively supporting university technology transfer,
• Facilitating university-industry collaboration, and
• Engaging in regional and local economic development efforts.
The study found that universities do not view innovation and entrepreneurship as a short-term
revenue opportunity, but as a long-term investment in their students, faculty, alumni, supporters,
and communities
Student entrepreneurship serves as a critical gateway for universities to comprehensively embrace
innovation and entrepreneurship. While many universities may hope that their students are
secretly working on the next Apple® or Google®, their main objective is to provide educational
value in a way that will focus students’ energies to help them identify and embrace their areas of
interest, and supplement their classroom education with the development of life skills, such as
budgeting, marketing, and professionalism. Many universities believe that they will benefit more
through sustained relationships with their graduates, rather than by acquiring financial equity from
student startups.
Faculty entrepreneurship policies are designed to connect research to market and societal
relevance and to find solutions to real-world problems. Universities are encouraging faculty
entrepreneurship by creating flexible work place policies, financial awards, and making seed
funding available to faculty, researchers, and graduate students, as tools for retention, revenue,
income supplementation, and as a way to keep faculty motivated and engaged. It is also a
reflection of a larger desire among a new generation of faculty to be more relevant to the world
around them.
The traditional home for starting the commercialization of university-based innovation and
entrepreneurship is the university’s technology transfer office (TTO). The TTO continues to be the
hub and engine of the commercialization process in top university campuses. TTOs are however
taking on a greater role than merely assisting with patenting and introducing faculty and students
to investors. TTOs are organizing networks across universities’ communities, growing their teams in
order to better understand new technologies, and organizing programming across campus
departments. TTOs also are aligning their goals with university advancement, and are developing
shared strategies around fund-raising, alumni engagement and corporate relations.

The need to collaborate with industry has grown in importance as access to federal funding
declines. Not only are universities licensing inventions to, and collaborating with, established
companies, but they are also increasing their support for home-grown startup companies. They
continue, though, to recognize that larger, established companies remain an important source of
revenue. Universities remain keenly aware of the importance of the private sector to their mission,
because private industry will ultimately house both their innovations and students when they
leave the university. In addition to licensing innovation and hiring their students, private industry is
actually a producer of innovation itself, and has a much deeper understanding of the broader
business climate and models to commercialize any given invention.
Finally, universities are looking at innovation, commercialization, and entrepreneurship as part of
their role in the economic development of their local economies – at the local and state levels.
While universities have always had an important role in their communities, the points of
engagement are rapidly changing. Instead of focusing solely on the economic impact of their
graduate hires or of the physical expansion of university facilities, universities are establishing
programs to engage their globally competitive talent to develop local and regional economies—
the engine of job creation and economic growth in many parts of the world.
Today’s innovation is multi-disciplinary in nature – across geographies, specialties, and fields.
Second, those organizations that seek to better support high-growth innovation and
entrepreneurship, from government agencies to non-profits and accelerators, must be able to
understand the needs of high-growth startups and their emerging technologies. Universities are
recruiting outside partners to better train their students and faculty on the strategic needs of
innovation-driven, high growth companies. University and business leaders see these areas of
integration as critical to the success of those startups.
The Innovative and Entrepreneurial University or College is a model combining the most
innovative, interesting, and successful examples of what universities and colleges are doing around
the world to foster innovation and entrepreneurship. Indian universities and colleges are on the
move. Whether just getting started with entrepreneurship clubs or setting up R&D labs or
incubators to scale up their commercialization efforts, the nation’s colleges and universities have
elevated the topics of innovation and entrepreneurship to national prominence.
EDI Strategic Plan 2016-21 for Entrepreneurship in HEIs
EDI has ininitiated a Strategic Plan in collaboration with Department of Technical Education (DOTE),
Department of Collegiate Education (DOCE), Directorate of Employment & Training (DET), National
Entrepreneurship Network (NEN), regional centres of excellence such as IIT-M Incubation cell, PSG-
STEP, VIT-TBI, TREC-STEP, etc., in keeping with the Tamil Nadu Vision 2023 and has formulated the
HEI Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development Program (IEDP) series of initiatives as below:

1. Embedding Entrepreneurship in education: EDI will work with and support Higher Education
department, Universities, TANSCHE to put in place a Student Entrepreneurship & Innovation
Policy which include inter alia, introduction of electives, learning-by-doing
entrepreneurship activities right from first year (example: Europe http://www.tesguide.eu
& http://theentrepreneurialschool.eu/), visits to businesses, interaction with successful
businessmen and women students of arts and science colleges, engineering, medical,
agriculture, veterinary, fishery colleges, ITIs, polytechnics & all other categories of colleges.
Students of all faculties will be able to choose entrepreneurship courses to suit their needs,
and Universities will be encouraged to award formal credits for a wide variety of
entrepreneurship activities including participation in entrepreneurship club,
entrepreneurship events, entrepreneurship courses, including social & eco-
entrepreneurship. EDI will assist universities to evolve curricular inputs in colleges and
schools & advocate entrepreneurship courses for all streams, programmes and chairs at
higher education institutions and universities would be jointly reviewed.
2. College Innovation & Entrepreneurship Development Council: EDI will work with TANSCHE
and Higher Education department to support establishment of a College Entrepreneurship
Development & Innovation Council and Innovation & Entrepreneurship Development Centre
(IEDC) in every higher educational institution consisting of top management representative,
HODs, bankers, successful entrepreneurs including alumni, industry representatives,
etc. Support of Top Management of any Institution management support is a vital key to
creation of a favorable ecosystem within educational institutions for Entrepreneurship to
flower, based on study of successful STEPs & IEDCs in certain private institutions. This
forum would enable entrepreneurs to directly link with students and mentor student-
promoted businesses.
3. Top Management Sensitisation workshops: for Vice Chancellors, College Top Management
& Government College Principals would be organised by EDI every year for those
institutions which are yet to initiate ED&I Processes culminating in formation of an active
ED&I Council in every college/Polytechnic /ITI in collaboration with TANSCHE, Universities
and Higher & School Education department.
4. Faculty Development Programs for College and Schools : would be organised every year for
all engineering, arts and science, agriculture, vet, fisheries, medical colleges and other
colleges, polytechnics, ITIs will be provided with additional support for re-training of
existing faculty to run EACs, establish IEDCs to deliver and support entrepreneurship
courses and set up BIs to promote and incubate businesses by students of all courses. NEN
will support EDI in this exercise.
5. Student Entrepreneur's Clubs: will be formed in all colleges and other higher educational
institutions to enable students to develop entrepreneurship skills. Activities such as run-

you-own company, ideation camps, interaction with successful entrepreneurs, exposure
visits to successful enterprises, etc., would be taken up by these clubs. Training for faculty
of institutions would be provided. Business ideation, business-case challenge & Social
entrepreneurship competitions would be promoted in colleges & polytechnics (eg.
ENACTUS: http://enactus.org/what-we-do/project-stories/, CII Innovation
http://www.ciiinnovation.in ). Product Innovation Conferences (TEDx type) and Thematic
hackathons would be organised periodically in colleges to feature, recognise and document
innovative ideas and product designs.
6. Online portal & Mobile App for business games/challenge Portal for students: would be
launched to engage a larger number of students in preparedness for enterprise activities
(eg. Desafio SEBRAE in Brazil :: www.desafio.sebrae.com.br ) by providing a bouquet of
entrepreneurship activities like games, virtual activities like run-your-company, etc., that
could be used in colleges and schools to experience entrepreneurship.
7. University Innovation & Entrepreneurship Development Centres (U-IEDC): EDI will work with
TANSCHE to encourage Universities to activate University IEDCs as resource centres to
support and coordinate College Innovation & Entrepreneurship Development Councils and
IEDCs. The State Government had sanctioned Rs 20 lakhs per center in last few years. The
centre would also build expertise in promoting creation of IP and IPR awareness and
commercialisation of IP.
8. School Entrepreneurship & Innovation Programs: EDI will work with Atal Innovation Mission
to ensure that maximum of schools set up Tinkering labs. Also EDI will work with School
education department to introduce entrepreneurship activities for children in 8-11 th
classes as extra curricular activities and enable children to participate in innovation and
entrepreneurship contests and challenges.
9. Manufacturing Startup & Acceleration Centre: will be set up within EDI with a auditoria,
conference rooms, co-working spaces, exposition centre, etc., and a manufacturing startup
hub with co-working spaces, startup labs, FabLab, etc., in PPP mode. The Centre will
provide startup incubation services, advisory services, accelarator programs, etc. A sum of
Rs 3 crores has already been sanctioned for this by Government of Tamil Nadu for the
EBAC, renamed as MSAC.
10. Centres for Manufacturing Innovation: EDI would also work with State Government and GoI
in setting up Centres of Manufacturing Innovation in five reputed engineering, medical and
agricultural schools to enable entrepreneurs ideate, design and commercialise innovative
products and services by MSMEs in Industrial IOT (M2M, V2V, etc.) & smart machinery,
Renewable power technologies, Organic farming & water saving technologies, Environment
& Clean Technologies, Sustainable Transportation and Smart cities.

11. MSME Industry-University Innovation Programme: would facilitate partnerships between
Universities, Research Institutions and Industry/SMEs to generate new or improved
products. Universities and top educational institutions institutions would be encouraged to
generate proposals for prototyping & commercialisation of new products, patent filing,
product improvement under GITA, DBT, DEITY, DST & CSIR funded programs.
12. Facilitate access to R&D grants: EDI will support deserving Educational Institutions in
accessing DST, DBT, DEITY, GITA & other GOI grants for product development, incubation,
startup support, etc., by organising joint workshops with MoC, DST, DBT, DHI, DMSME, DIPP
and other GOI departments.
13. IPR Protection & value Capture campaign: Workshops would be organised periodically to
enable MSMEs to understand how to benefit from IPR and ways to protect IPR in
collaboration with office of Controller General of Patents/Designs/Trademarks, and TN
Technology Development and Promotion Centre (TNTDPC). EDI will encourage innovators,
universities and institutions to patent & commercialise innovative entrepreneurship ideas
and technologies by promoting and strengthening Intellectual Property Rights.
14. Innovations Marketplace: would be designed and moderated by EDI to showcase MSME
innovations and promote their marketing while ensuring IPR.

3. Building Entrepreneurial & Innovation Ecosystems
“Entrepreneurship does not have to be high risk. It does need, however, to be systematic”
- Peter F. Drucker
Governments across the world are looking to technology innovation as a driver for national
economic growth, and to universities as the incubators of this national capacity. Universities
operating within established technology-driven innovation hubs offer robust models for success
within these environments. However, an increasing number of universities located within more
challenging environments are establishing strong entrepreneurship and innovation (E&I) profiles
and reputations, some of whom will undoubtedly become future national and international
leaders. This emerging leaders group (ELG) of universities offers insights for the international
academic community in two important domains:
• how to drive and manage a process of institutional transformation towards a more
entrepreneurial model;
• how university-based ecosystems can be nurtured in cultural, economic and socio-political
environments that may not be naturally conducive to E&I .
Reinventing education: Top management E&I Vision
Various studies, including the MIT-SkolTech report, reiterate key role played by University senior
management in promoting E&I. Strong university leadership, actively promoting a clear and
prominent E&I agenda that is heard and understood by staff, students and the regional community
is a sine qua non for building a sustainable ecosystem. Such clear commitment ensures priority to
establishing a market for the university’s innovative output, developing an approach that is
responsive to regional constraints and opportunities.

The Institution Board of Governors or College Management Council or University Syndicate or Top
Management need to develop and drive the Entrepreneurship & Innovation Vision for the
institution, commit budgets, physical and human resources for E&I activities. Policy support for E&I
has also to be demonstrated by Top Management being part of E&I Initiatives, formally and
informally.
The vision would involve laying out, say a 10 year, strategic plan and agreeing upon faculty and
student E&I policies that support the vision. The policy would also outline E&I outcomes in the
form of indicators. Often University labs and R&D centres stop with publication of papers or just
filing patents. Taking the less travelled road to harnessing the full economic potential of intellectual
property has powerful entrepreneurship and business outcomes for colleges and surrounding
regions.
Attributes of an Entrepreneurial HEI
Some attributes of an entrepreneurial Higher Educational Institution are:
• Entrepreneurship is embedded in the college’s culture and mission.
• A comprehensive strategic framework for the development and performance of the
university, setting clear high-level objectives to which all units are expected to contribute,
with substantial autonomy in how they do so, and setting standards for accountability and
reporting.
• An entrepreneurial education institution has a vision of how entrepreneurship education
fits into the broader curriculum and development plan.
• High level of strategic, operational and financial autonomy to units

• An entrepreneurial teacher education institution has a strong network with the external
world.
• An entrepreneurial institution seeks to find the right people, recruit them and allow them
the space to develop their ideas. Entrepreneurial HEIs go beyond national borders to get
talent.
• Revenue generation for increased autonomy, in a manner that enhances the creation of
human, intellectual, social and cultural capital, will be a clear priority, as both the practice
and the outcome of revenue generation are essential elements of entrepreneurship.
• Entrepreneurship education is integrated as a horizontal approach and a cross curricular
subject throughout the whole study programme. Rather than being viewed as an isolated
subject, it is perceived as a competence and talent crucial to any teacher’s qualifications.
• Participation in entrepreneurship education courses and actions is a curriculum
requirement rather than an elective activity.
• Entrepreneurial institutions make room for experimentation. New teaching methods and
innovative projects are given space and support to succeed. Educators are allowed an
experimental attitude acknowledging that sometimes things will fail.
• Proactive, risk-tolerant and team approach by service providers such as Finance, HR, QA, IT,
Estates, Health & Safety etc. to develop and support initiatives aligned to the strategic goals
and to overcome externally imposed (eg legal) constraints, with private sector response
times.
• Top-down support for E&I from top management is visible in the form of budgets,
resources and discourse of top management.
Throwing open doors: building partnerships with E&I stakeholders
The need to collaborate with industry has grown in importance as access to State funding
fluctuates. Not only are top universities licensing inventions to, and collaborating with, established
companies, but they are also increasing their support for home-grown startup companies. They
continue, though, to recognize that larger, established companies remain an important source of
revenue. Universities remain keenly aware of the importance of the private sector to their mission,
because private industry will ultimately house both their innovations and students when they
leave the university. In addition to licensing innovation and hiring their students, private industry is
actually a producer of innovation itself, and has a much deeper understanding of the broader
business climate and models to commercialize any given invention.
As faculty become more interested in commercialization activities, universities are providing
additional resources to encourage collaboration with local communities and industries. A few

universities have hired individuals, or created teams, to connect faculty with similar interests and
research goals—often reaching across academic departments—to share information and
experience on creating startups, licensing technology, and collaborating with industry. This cross-
disciplinary effort helps share information on best practices and spurs new ideas for developing
and commercializing new products.
HEIs are also inviting community leaders and local entrepreneurs to become more involved in the
development of technology and startup companies. A few universities have developed programs to
link experienced entrepreneurs with faculty to assist in the startup process, development, and
longevity. In most cases, faculty returns to teach and continue research, allowing the non-
university collaborative partners to take over the leadership role and continue to develop and
expand the companies. Entrepreneurs also serve in a mentor role, helping faculty to identify and
further develop commercialization opportunities.
Entrepreneurship and Innovation thrive in diversity. HEIs also require market guidance and need
collaboration with local communities and industries. They need to connect faculty with similar
interests and research goals—often reaching across academic departments—to share information
and experience on creating startups, licensing technology, and collaborating with industry. This
cross-disciplinary effort helps share information on best practices and spurs new ideas for
developing and commercializing new products. Partnerships offer the diversity factor.

HEIs, even those which are products of entrepreneurship, lack the experience to support
enterprises. Therefore, Universities and colleges are inviting community leaders and local
entrepreneurs to become more involved in the development of technology and startup companies.
A few universities have developed programs to link experienced entrepreneurs with faculty to
assist in the startup process, development, and longevity. In most cases, faculty returns to teach
and continue research, allowing the non-university collaborative partners to take over the
leadership role and continue to develop and expand the companies. Entrepreneurs also serve in a
mentoring role, helping faculty to identify and further develop commercialization opportunities.
An institutional mechanism is often called for at University and College level to sanctify
partnerships. Institutions have adopted a variety of approaches including advisory committees or
Councils. It is recommended that every institution set up a powerful College Entrepreneurship &
Innovation Council with to guide the institution in it’s E&I journey. Led by a top management
representative, it must be packed with eminent technologists, successful startup entrepreneurs,
(esp. alumni), senior bank managers, large industry representatives, angel and venture capital
funds and faculty heads.
Some reasons as to how such partnerships can benefit institutions are listed below:
• Entrepreneurial schools and projects benefit from engaging business partners. Companies
and business organisations can provide expertise to entrepreneurship education projects,
and they can take part in teacher-training in colleges.
• Faculty training in industry is the first stage for creating entrepreneurial faculty to
understand industry requirements and business practices. Aware faculty can lead E&I
transformation within institutions, by altering the state-of-art of teaching towards practice.
• Roping in adjunct faculty from industry for mainstream teaching as well as for E&I
facilitation would enhance student learning making them more employable. Such adjunct
faculty can also mentor student entrepreneurs.
• Taking up industrial R&D and problem solving exercises would help in creating new revenue
streams and enlarging the role of the institution, besides opening up possibility of financing
of institutional R&D by industry.
• Creative workers such as artists, designers, architects and scientists can help schools and
teachers to unlock the creativity and raise the aspirations and achievements of children and
young people. Examples show that long-term relationships between creative workers and
schools have a positive impact.
• Entrepreneurial institutions and educators take part in peer learning and exchange on local,
regional, national and international level.

Breaking internal silos: Creating cross-functional faculty teams
Institutions often work in faculty silos. Innovation requires such walls be broken down through
concerted efforts. Sharing of resources, including laboratories and research faculty, developing
joint research projects and teams and most importantly sharing a common entrepreneurial
mindset would be the objectives of a institution-wide team building exercise. This would lead to
greater collaboration between departments and formation of a cohesive institutional team. Faculty
exposure visits and training programs will create a favorable inclination towards entrepreneurship.
Cross-disciplinary collaborations have become an increasingly important part of science. They are
seen as key if we are to find solutions to pressing, global-scale societal challenges, including green
technologies, sustainable food production, and drug development. Regulators and policy-makers
have realized the power of such collaborations, for example, in the 80 billion Euro "Horizon 2020"
EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation. This programme puts special emphasis on
“breaking down barriers to create a genuine single market for knowledge, research and
innovation” (http://ec.europa.eu/programmes/horizon2020/en/what-horizon-2020).
Cross-disciplinary collaborations are key to all partners in computational biology. On the one hand,
for scientists working in theoretical fields such as computer science, mathematics, or statistics,
validation of predictions against experimental data is of the utmost importance. The synergistic
and skilful combining of different disciplines can achieve insight beyond current borders and
thereby generate novel solutions to complex problems. The combination of methods and data
from different fields can achieve more than the sum of the individual parts could do alone. This
applies not only to computational biology but also to many other academic disciplines. Setting up
cross functional research teams creates diversity in thinking leading to innovation.
Sensitising HODs of various faculty to such possibilities for E&I holds the key to successful creation
of IP and its commercialisation. Several rounds of FDPs, with management games for team building
and case studies of results of cross functional E&I, may be required to break down inhibitions of
the past and create an acceptable level of collaboration with the following KPIs:
• Autonomy for faculty members to support E&I in any other faculty
• Autonomy for research groups and entrepreneurs to use equipment and resources of other
other departments
• Number of cross functional research projects taken up
• Number of cross- functional startup business incubated.

Incentivising E&I: Defining Institutional E&I policies
Developing a vision and a strategic plan for E&I for the institution would enable the Council to lay
down an E&I Policy and implement the same. Key aspects of the policy that can be covered are:
• Incentives for Faculty for E&I activities: share of revenue for faculty in industry R&D
consultation, permission to float technology enterprises based on IP developed, etc.
• Student policy for E&I : sabbaticals, E&I electives, credits for E&I activities, etc.

• IP Policy: ownership of IP developed, share of royalty between institution, faculty and
students, etc.
AICTE has announced Student Startup Policy 2016 which can be further used by HEIs to strengthen
entrepreneurship and Innovation in campuses. Please see www.aicte-india.org/downloads/Startup
%20Policy.pdf This could be used by each HEI to develop its own detailed policy on E&I which will
remain as an incentive and motivation factor for spurring E&I in campus.
Walking the Talk : Committing faculty, space, funds, equipment
The HEI’s top management’s vision has to translate into a rounded Entrepreneurship and
Innovation Policy. The effectiveness of this statement lies in how it leads to allocation of resources
for E&I such as:
• Funding for various innovation activities, including syndication of external funds
• Spaces for E-cell/EDC/IEDC, incubation, innovation centres (fablabs)
• Freedom for faculty to allocate time for E&I activities
• Rewards, recognition and promotions for top E&I faculty
• Seed fund for investing in startups
An entrepreneurial institution has a vision for its future needs and a provides resources for
realising this vision. Many institutions have gone way ahead in committing resources and creating
such an environment in campus through their own funds or grant assistance. IIT-Madras, PSG-Tech,
VIT - Vellore, etc. Funding should mean regular annual funding for these activities. Institutions
could also charge for some of the E&I services provided to students or alumni or entrepreneurs
from outside as a means to enable sustainability of financing.
Building the Alumni Network: Survey, Connect and Tap
HEIs should invest resources necessary to build, grow and make use of a user-friendly
database/portal for alumni with demonstrated entrepreneurial interest. Furthermore, The HEI

IEDC should nominate an administrator whose full-time focus would be to help match
entrepreneur-alumni with students and faculty. The goal is to establish a small, highly curated
network of the ablest and most dedicated mentors (alumni as well as non-alumni). Indeed,
mentorship, especially when carried out through small-group events and one-on-one interaction,
can become the most useful resource a university can provide to its entrepreneurs. Online
mentoring can also be encouraged for alumni diaspora across the world. Organising an annual
Alumni conference will be an opportunity to pitch E&I projects for financial and technical
involvement of alumni.
The Singapore Management University Alumni Relation office has floated an online Alumni
Entrepreneurs Network to enable them to help each other, the University, faculty and students. As
the community by entrepreneurs, for entrepreneurs, they are guided by a couple of principles
which are truly unique to us:
• Source from SMU Alumni Owned/Operate Businesses first
• Push automation and use of digital platform for even greater pre event value
• Actively welcome any SMU students, faculty and staff who are entrepreneurs or would be
entrepreneurs as well
A survey was undertaken in 2013 on the entrepreneurial efforts of the alumni of the University of
Virginia. Entrepreneurial alumni as those who founded new ventures, who are one of the first five
employees of a new venture, who serve on the governing or advisory board of a new venture, or
who provide capital to entrepreneurial ventures (e.g., angel investors and venture capitalists).
Ventures include for-profit businesses as well as non-profit organizations. The survey suggests that
entrepreneurial alumni have created approximately 65,000 companies. These efforts have
contributed to the economy—notably, an estimated 2.3 million people have worked at companies
founded or directly supported by University of Virginia alumni. The organizations that are active
today generate estimated global revenues of $1.6 trillion annually.
This study complements previous studies on Stanford University and MIT conducted by Batten
Fellow and report co-author Charles Eesley. The numbers are impressive. As of 2012, Stanford
alumni created an estimated 39,900 active firms generating annual worldwide revenues of $2.7
trillion and employing 5.4 million people. A survey in 2003 showed that MIT alumni had founded
25,800 active firms that employed an estimated 3.3 million people and generated annual
worldwide revenues of $2 trillion. In both cases, these efforts created substantial local spillovers.
25% of Stanford entrepreneurs founded their companies within 20 miles of the university. 27% of
MIT entrepreneurial ventures active in 2003 were head-quartered in Massachusetts, creating
nearly 1 million jobs.

Surveying, connecting and tapping into the alumni entrepreneurs network for creating an
entrepreneurial ecosystem in the college can be enormously useful to understanding, connecting
and collaborating with alumni entrepreneurs.
Training the Trainers: Building a breed of Entrepreneurial Teachers
High quality programmes for the continuing professional development of existing teachers are
needed to support entrepreneurial teachers, and to make sure that those who did not have the
chance to experience entrepreneurship education during their initial training can catch up with the
latest developments in E&I.
Teachers should get the chance to experience entrepreneurial learning in their initial training. By
studying in an institution that enforces entrepreneurship education in a broad sense, teachers
develop a range of skills and methods that enables them to be innovative and entrepreneurial
themselves. Teachers entering their profession with an awareness of entrepreneurial principles are
able to ignite the ‘entrepreneurial spark’ and inspire their students right from the beginning of
their professional career.
To act entrepreneurial, active learning is necessary. Contemporary pedagogies (e.g. project-based,
active learning or independent learning) should be applied. These can be piloted in specific
programmes; emerging good practices should be shared amongst teacher educators to eventually
become embedded in day-to-day pedagogy. Non-traditional learning environments (real-life
situations, out of classroom) should be available for all students.
An OECD document “Entrepreneurship Education: A Guide for Educators” documents some
attributes of entrepreneurial teachers :
• Entrepreneurial teachers reward individual initiative, responsibility taking and risk taking.
• Entrepreneurial teachers are ready to accept failure and integrate failure as an integral part
of a learning process.
• But entrepreneurial teachers also have learned how to manage risks. Failure is an integral
part of the entrepreneurial process but it can also be a costly waste of time, skill and
commitment. Entrepreneurial teachers teach how to mitigate risks.
• Entrepreneurial teachers have strong team working skills.
• Entrepreneurial teachers are networkers. They frequently exchange with and consult with
their peers, external collaborators and meet up regularly.
• Entrepreneurial teachers use a variety of creative methods as innovative pedagogical tools.
• They let students take responsibility for their own learning process, for instance by letting
them create their own lessons.

• In their assessment methods, entrepreneurial teachers acknowledge not only the solution,
but also the process of how to get there.
• Entrepreneurial teachers use technology and social media in the classroom to support
learning. They explore new solutions, production techniques and computing tools which
support the learning process.
• They also use social media for their own peer learning and exchange of information.
Creating E&I beehives in campus: Incubators & Accelerators
Today’s competitive, high-risk/high-reward marketplace entices young entrepreneurs to develop
(and cash in on) daring ideas virtually overnight. To remain relevant and enable emerging thinkers
to pursue surer pathways to success, Universities are introducing campus spaces where students
can connect to fellow entrepreneurs and interested financiers. These new places – academic
incubators – have helped universities rethink their place in preparing the next generation, creating
entrepreneurial environments that facilitate connections and speed innovative ideas from concept
to reality.
Functionally distinct from classrooms, libraries and student unions, academic incubators establish
new forums for idea exchange on campus. Designed to spark strategic partnerships between
academia and industry, incubators connect students to startups, investors and other collaborators
they might not otherwise encounter. As such, academic incubators provide a community, resources
and the physical environments essential to fostering entrepreneurial exploration. Depending on
stated purpose and mission, incubators may offer: co-working or maker spaces, conference rooms,
labs, cafes, concierge services and mentors.
Universities are assessing how best to prepare students for meaningful and rewarding careers.
Today’s university students want more than academic degrees; they aim to launch businesses,
develop new products and start social movements. In response, universities are building academic
incubators to remain competitive and relevant; to attract and retain entrepreneurial students,
faculty and researchers; and to forge connections between industry and academia. Incubators are
now a vital part of the higher education landscape. They embrace a culture that promotes tenets
like “take risks” and “fail fast,” while allowing students to develop hands-on entrepreneurial skills.
Universities are keen to promote their startup spirit, because classroom settings often lack it.
Incubators are distinct academic ecosystems populated by curious and inquisitive entrepreneurs,
free agents, programmers, designers, dreamers, angel investors, tinkerers, venture capitalists and
more. Students seeking connections to the marketplace use incubators, as do companies looking
to recruit top talent, and research organizations seeking people who think in entrepreneurial ways.
Academic incubators position universities as progressive places, attracting students to learning
environments very different from conventional classroom settings. Simultaneously, businesses look

to incubators to surface an academic institution’s intellectual capital and top talent. Incubators also
enable companies to participate in cutting-edge research without having to invest significant
resources. For cities, incubators offer a vision of what a city could be, or what a city aspires to be.
They raise awareness of a city’s ambitions, attracting established corporations and their
workforces, while sparking startups to support neighbourhood growth and development.
Design plays a key role in shaping an incubator’s vision and direction, and sets the tone for what
happens inside the space. While incubator design shares a common theme of flexibility, it does
more: the design offers cues to people using the space, inspiring them to connect in new ways.
Unlike traditional academic design, incubators are more likely to resemble co-working spaces and
startup offices, offering people choice and control over where and how they work. Incubators
provide students a glimpse of where they could go after they make the leap from campus to
workplace.
A college can start up with a simple Business Incubator (BI) of about a few thousand square-feet of
co-working space run by an independent organisation, preferably a company, headed by a
experience entrepreneur and with partnership of research faculty, bankers, successful startups and
innovators. It can then graduate to innovative technology by connecting to their own or external
research labs to commercialise technology as businesses. There are several funding schemes of the
Government of India that fund accelarators : NSTEDB (DST), BIRAC (DBT), MEITY, Atal Innovation
Mission (NITi AAYOG ), ASPIRE (MSMED), etc.
HEIs could further graduate to run accelerator programs within their incubators. Accelerator
programs help ventures define and build their initial products, identify promising customer
segments, and secure resources, including capital and employees. More specifically, accelerator
programs are programs of limited-duration—lasting about three months—that help cohorts of
startups with the new venture process. They usually provide a small amount of seed capital, plus
working space. They also offer a plethora of networking opportunities, with both peer ventures
and mentors, who might be successful entrepreneurs, program graduates, venture capitalists,
angel investors, or even corporate executives. Finally, most programs end with a grand event, a
“demo day” where ventures pitch to a large audience of qualified investors. While most
accelerators provide tangibles such as funding, mentorship and access to potential investors,
they're not a golden ticket to success. Despite all the support, entrepreneurs still need to think for
themselves.
Hiring top guns: Brain Gain of NRI innovators & scientists as faculty
Universities and HEIs need talent to kick-start the innovation process. Talent pool within the
country and outside can be tapped, provided the institution adopts a good strategy to attract and
retain talent. Ambitious and bright, a rash of scientists had left India for better opportunities and,
over the years, gained vital exposure to the best global research labs. After years of experimenting

and collaborating with some of the top scientists in the world, many are now choosing to return to
their homeland.
Traditionally, such homecomings are driven partly by family compulsions, but of late it is a flurry of
fellowships and incentives by the government that has helped the scientists relocate to India. The
main attraction now is absorption into a high quality institution where they can be part of the
permanent faculty. Says department of science and technology secretary Ashutosh Sharma:
"Turning brain drain into brain gain requires creation of appropriate opportunities at certain
critical stages in the progression of a scientific career." The first critical point, he adds, is right after
PhD when substantial resources to train a scientist have already been committed. The second
intervention is to attract the scientists who have gone abroad back to the country.
RA Mashelkar, a former director-general of the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR),
says, "India is moving from brain drain to brain gain to brain circulation. An Indian scientist would
love to stay in India, provided he is given a challenging job here. And I strongly believe that India is
becoming a land of opportunity."
India is indeed rapidly becoming a global research, design and development hub. More than 1,000
companies from around the world have set up their R&D centres in India. Over 2,00,000 scientists
and engineers are working there, at least a fourth of whom have returned from overseas.
Don’t re-invent the wheel! Learn from Best Practices (Forbes List)
An excellent set of best practices from various HEIs across the World have been documented by
OECD, NCEE, Forbes, etc. HEIs in India can choose from any of these as well as add to these:
Ramanujam fellowship
The Ramanujam fellowship offered by the Science & Engineering Research Board (SERB) is meant for brilliant
scientists and engineers from all over the world to take up scientific research positions in India, i.e. for those
scientists who want to return to India from abroad. The fellowships are scientist-specific and very selective. The
Ramanujan Fellows could work in any of the scientific institutions and universities in the country and they would be
eligible for receiving regular research grants through the extramural funding schemes of various S&T agencies of the
Government of India.
Source : http://www.serb.gov.in/rnf.php

The Entrepreneurial University: A Learning Organisation
The journey of transforming into an entrepreneurial university or college may involve difficult
institutional change towards a position of intellectual entrepreneurship where each and every

individual and unit within the organisation internalises entrepreneurial characteristics and
implement entrepreneurial practices within their area of influence, creating a living
entrepreneurial culture. Institutional change can be defined broadly in terms of both changes in
formal and informal ways of doing things. It therefore embraces not only changes in organisations
and organisational relationships but also changes in the governance systems and underpinning
culture. Organisation theory suggests that for progress to be made the pressures for change need
to be clearly understood, felt and owned within the organisation. It is imperative that the
entrepreneurial university has clarity and coherence in its mission, vision, values, and strategy, and
that its people, systems and structures are enabled to support the entrepreneurial mission of the
organisation.
In developing an entrepreneurial culture, Louis et al (1989) found that institutional
entrepreneurship is very difficult to engineer. Instead, they suggest that the move to an
entrepreneurial university is essentially driven by the activities of individual faculty. The
importance of academic entrepreneurs is widely accepted and is linked to a common view that an
appropriate prevailing institutional culture is critical to successful entrepreneurial activity.
Commonly quoted components of entrepreneurial cultures include a willingness to take risks,
shared governance and appropriate reward systems.
Chung and Gibbons (1997), offer further support in refuting mechanistic approaches to the
development of corporate entrepreneurship by suggesting that entrepreneurial behaviour within
an organisation can only be effectively promoted through an appropriate corporate culture. A
culture in which motivated individuals with enabling support systems, structures and services are
constantly challenged to expand their capabilities through innovation, creativity and problem
solving behaviour. In general, organisations can be designed to enhance or constrain
entrepreneurial behaviour. Enterprising behaviour demands freedom for individuals to take
ownership of initiatives, see such initiatives through, enjoy and take personal ownership of
external and internal relationships, make mistakes and learn from them by doing. The capacity to
innovate and be creative is a function of individual enterprising behaviour and entrepreneurial
organisation design. The Entrepreneurial University creates and is created by entrepreneurial
individuals within a supportive environment.
It has been argued that, in terms of organisation, entrepreneurial universities are managed in such
a way that they become capable of responding flexibly, strategically and yet coherently to
opportunities in the environment. Burton Clarke describes that as having a ‘strong steering core
with acceptance of a model of self-made autonomy’ across the academic departments
entrepreneurship becomes part of the university’s core strategy. The ultimate outcome is the
creation of an enterprise culture defined particularly as one open to change and to the search for,
and exploitation of, opportunities for innovation and development (Gibb & Hannon, 2006: 15).
Clark characterises the organisational foundation of the university as “the steady state for

The Entrepreneurial University - A review of best practices

The Entrepreneurial University - A review of best practices

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot (20)

Viewers also liked

Viewers also liked (20)

Similar to The Entrepreneurial University - A review of best practices

Similar to The Entrepreneurial University - A review of best practices (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

The Entrepreneurial University - A review of best practices