chapter 2, The Academic Entrepreneur: An Oxymoron?

In Part I: Reflections, Motives, and Money from: Engineering a High-Tech Business: Entrepreneurial Experiences and Insights

Editor(s): José Miguel López-Higuera, Brian Culshaw

Author(s): Brian Culshaw

Published: 21 March 2008

Chapter DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1117/3.786604.ch2

Chapter Page Count: 5 pages

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Front Matter

Part I: Reflections, Motives, and Money
1. Some Suggestions from an Economist to a New High-Tech Starter

2. The Academic Entrepreneur: An Oxymoron?

3. Money

4. Confessions of a Start-Up Junkie

5. Being an “Intrapreneur” and an Entrepreneur in the Optoelectronics Industry

Part II: Some Case Studies
6. Mirada Solutions: The Case Study of a University Spin-Off

7. Building a Company the Old-Fashioned Way: Meadowlark Optics, Inc.

8. Building a Lasting Optical Design and Manufacturing Company

9. The Life and Times of a High-Tech Entrepreneur

10. A Case from Russia: IPG Photonics

11. Wacko WYKO

12. The Ocean Optics Story in a Nutshell

13. Experiences Starting a Nano-Sized Company

14. The Story of Fiberonics

15. Founding a Fiber-Optic Component and Sensor Business

16. How to Start a Small High-Tech Business in Troutdale, Oregon

17. SMARTEC: Bringing Fiber-Optic Sensors into Concrete Applications

18. “An Earth Odyssey” or Fibersensing

19. The First Years of Crystal Fibre A/S from a University Perspective

20. Multiwave Photonics: Building a Fiber Optics Company in Portugal

Part III: Supporting the Entrepreneur
21. Developing High-Tech Companies in Spain and Portugal

22. Intellectual Property in High-Tech Entrepreneurship

23. Support for a Young Company

Part IV: The Universities
24. Strategic Support: The Case of the Technical University of Madrid

25. University Research and the Optics Industry

Back Matter

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Excerpt

This chapter explores the academic as an entrepreneur, attempting to present the need for mutual respect and, possibly above all else, the necessity that the whole thing should be enjoyable.

2.1 Introduction

The concept that academics should “take their ideas to market” has been with us for a very long time. Historically, though, mutterings in the common room have disparaged the (usually) senior academic trotting the world to his planning consultancies in Tokyo, London, Cape Town, and New York. How can such philandering possibly benefit the academic credibility of our august institution? Indeed, why are such miscreants never discreetly asked to resign from their positions?

Similar gossip survives to this day. However, in the UK at least the encouragement to do the deed as well as publish the paper has never been stronger. Universities gain local credibility through reporting that their staffs have successfully taken this or that high-technology concept into a marketable product. The university “contracts office” has evolved from a quirky curiosity into a (usually) professional support body, linking academia into sources of finance and industrial exploitation opportunities. Institutional philosophy may have changed, but the academics themselves retain many of their stereotype attributes, dreamy and unmanageable (“herding cats” is the phrase often used); they are anathema to conventional business. Spin-outs, indeed the whole SME (small-to-medium enterprise) culture, shouldn't, though, be confused with the conventional business infrastructure embraced by the corporate multinational.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1117/3.786604.ch2

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