Abstract:

This paper describes the evolution of Mondragon University (MU) towards an Entrepreneurial University, the diverse activities that we have carried out and the future actions that we are going to fulfil. This transition from one stage to the other is a hard work, because of the non acceptance towards entrepreneurship across the faculties and departments in universities (Yusof and Jain, 2010) and the lack of entrepreneurial spirit into the student. Because of this, we have set up an Entrepreneurial Action Plan which has two clear objectives: the first one is to solve the gap between our collective (researchers and students) and the entrepreneurial activity and the second one is to promote the academic spin-off creation.

Since years, MU has been working hardly in the University-Industry relationship, focusing our research on the business reality thanks to experimental development activities with industrial companies. This way, MU is engaging with industry to get further its research and to promote the growth and the stability of the established company. However, MU has gone a step further and in our Strategic Plan for the Transference, we had established the objective to promote the creation of New Technology Based Firms through the knowledge, technology and results generated from the University.

For achieving this objective we have defined an Entrepreneurial Action Plan which, at the same time, has the aim to promote the entrepreneurial spirit (among our students and researchers) and to increase the number of business projects to transfer to a Business Innovation Center (BIC). Our plan is divided in three phases and there are specific actions designed for each one. At the first stage, we promote the entrepreneurial spirit, becoming the entrepreneurial world more accessible for our collective. In the second one, we implement some mechanisms to identify new possible business ideas from our researchers and students. During the last phase, we analyze deeper the business ideas which are attractive, and we develop a mini-business plan for each one. To conclude with the process, if we perceive that any of these business plans can become into a successful spin-off, we transfer the project to a BIC.

Moreover, to ensure that The Entrepreneurial Plan is achieving its objective, we have established some indicators for each of the phases. This way, we can compare the expected results with the real ones (for the course 2010/2011). This journey has not been an easy job, we have found some difficulties during its execution. However, we can conclude stating that this plan has been a real boost for MU towards an Entrepreneurial University.

Keywords:

Academic Entrepreneurship, Academic Spin-Off, Action plan, High education.