Universities, such as MIT, Cornell, and Harvard Business School, have been recruiting entrepreneurs in residence (EIRs) in advisory roles to help students and faculty commericalise and have the greatest impact with their ideas.
Entrepreneurs in Residence (EIRs) are finding homes in academia, according to research by news provider CIO magazine, as universities become more focused on helping incubate ideas into businesses.
Universities, such as MIT, Cornell, and Harvard Business School, have been recruiting entrepreneurs in residence (EIRs) in advisory roles to help students and faculty commericalise and have the greatest impact with their ideas.
The spread of EIRs into academia follows their use by venture capital firms and also in corporations, including computer maker Dell’s Ingrid Vanderveldt (pictured) and Craig Walker at search engine provider Google’s corporate venturing unit. These EIRs are also spreading into government agencies with Texas recently passing Senate Bill 238, which authorizes the US state to hire an EIR, while the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) created an EIR programme last year.
As Vanderveldt told CIO magazine: “A select group of EIRs would be placed in key departments for a couple of years at a time. Reporting to agency heads, these innovators would advise on efforts to make operations more efficient and responsive, while exposing federal officials to new ideas… Entrepreneurs could help with pinpointing any duplicative procedures for obtaining a business license and improving how to inform someone starting out a business about environmental or labour regulations and would be able to provide an outside perspective to government agencies as to how they might be able to take a more innovative, or entrepreneurial, approach to solve top problems.”
Universities are also working on their incubators, with research providers UBI in the summer releasing its global top 25.
University Business Incubators 2013
|
# |
Incubator |
University |
Country |
|
1 |
Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship |
Rice University |
United States |
|
2 |
VentureLab |
Georgia Institute of Technology |
United States |
|
3 |
UB Technology Incubator |
University at Buffalo State University of New York |
United States |
|
4 |
NDRC |
Dublin City University; Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology; National College of Art & Design; Trinity College Dublin; University College Dublin |
Ireland (Republic) |
|
4 |
SETsquared |
Bath, Bristol, Exeter, Southampton, Surrey |
United Kingdom |
|
4 |
Innovation Centre Sunshine Coast |
University of the Sunshine Coast |
Australia |
|
4 |
Tech 20/20 |
University of Tennessee |
United States |
|
4 |
ATP Innovations |
University of Sydney; University of New South Wales; University of Technology, Sydney; Australian National University |
Australia |
|
4 |
STING |
KTH Royal Institute of Technology |
Sweden |
|
10 |
NCTU Innovation Incubation Center |
National Chiao Tung University |
Taiwan |
|
11 |
Youngstown Business Incubator |
Youngstown State University |
United States |
|
11 |
I3P |
Politecnico di Torino |
Italy |
|
11 |
Vermont Center for Emerging Technologies |
University of Vermont and 9 others |
United States |
|
11 |
Jon Brumley Texas Venture Labs |
University of Texas at Austin |
United States |
|
15 |
Startup Sauna |
Aalto University |
Finland |
|
16 |
InNOLEvation Accelerator |
Florida State University |
United States |
|
17 |
TEC Edmonton |
University of Alberta |
Canada |
|
17 |
ASU Venture Catalyst |
Arizona State University |
United States |
|
19 |
Oxford Entrepreneurs Incubation Centre |
Oxford Entrepreneurs; Oxford University |
United Kingdom |
|
19 |
Mason Enterprise Center |
George Mason University |
United States |
|
19 |
NYU-Poly Incubator |
Polytechnic Institute of NYU |
United States |
|
19 |
profund – Die Gründungsförderung der Freien Universität Berlin |
Freie Universität Berlin |
United States |
|
23 |
Sid Martin Biotechnology Incubator |
University of Florida |
United States |
|
23 |
Advanced Science and Commercialization Center |
University of Kentucky |
United States |
|
25 |
Incubateur HEC |
HEC Paris |
France |
|
25 |
StarTau |
Tel Aviv University |
Israel |
|
25 |
Flagship Enterprise Center |
Anderson University |
United States |
|
25 |
Digital Media Zone |
Ryerson University |
Canada |
Source: UBI
