Between academia and business: research agenda for acapreneurship

Both business and academia recognise the value of innovation and commercialization of good ideas, but academia is not so naturally inclined to the free-flowing nature of the entrepreneurial spirit that sits at the heart of this area. The aim of this chapter is to build bridges between academia and business by introducing and discussing the notion of acapreneurship and to propose a research agenda thereof for future studies. In order to move towards the research agenda, we begin with introducing the notion of acapreneurship, of which we became intrigued when studying the development and commercialisation of biomedical research and the intensive collaboration between academia and businesses it requires. We bring acapreneurship to the university context by discussing and positioning it in the frame of academic entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial university. Then we highlight the expectations and potential tensions acapreneurship poses to faculty members. We conclude the chapter by suggesting some potential future research avenues for acapreneurship.