Andrew Kretz

Open science strategies in research policies: A comparative exploration of Canada, the US and the UK

Several movements have emerged related to the general idea of promoting ‘openness’ in science. Research councils are key institutions in bringing about changes proposed by these movements, as sponsors and facilitators of research. In this paper we identify the approaches used in Canada, the US and the UK to advance open science, as a step towards understanding how policy in this area is evolving. The findings highlight three broad patterns across the countries, showing that open science is supported not only be the activities of individual research councils, but also through government mandates and inter-council cooperation. These patterns involve efforts to create a digital infrastructure for open science, to foster open access, and to support open data initiatives.

The Entrepreneurship Movement and the University

List of Figures List of Tables 1. The Entrepreneurship Movement and the University 2. Entrepreneurship in North America 3. Public Policy for Entrepreneurship 4. Entrepreneurship Learning on Campus 5. Conclusions Index

Technology Commercialization as University Mission: Early Historical Developments at the University of Toronto

Canadian universities are perceived as less vibrant and engaged generators of technologies with commercial value than their American counterparts, and such perceptions have driven science policy for decades. This paper shows that contrary to these prevailing views, Canada’s largest university has a long history of experience in dealing with the technological gaps in national industry and in attempting to work with domestic firms. Three historical periods, particularly critical in shaping these interactions, are identified and discussed. By the time policy initiatives began emphasizing university-industry relationships, the university had already built essential organizational underpinnings for the commercialization of technologies.

Research and the ‘Third Mission’ in Light of Global Events

Research activity is becoming more geographically dispersed, whether one examines corporate research and development (R&D) or academic investigation conducted in universities and other scientific institutions. The chapter situates Brazil in this global context, with the aim of addressing the following question: how ready are Brazilian universities to contribute to industrial innovation, considering the growing globalisation of R&D? To address this question, the chapter reviews major policy developments over the last 15 years, delineating the conditions that shape the ability of Brazilian universities to contribute to industrial innovation in the 2010s.

Entrepreneurship Learning on Campus

This chapter investigates the efforts being undertaken in higher education to teach entrepreneurship and impart entrepreneurial attitudes and values to students. The chapter charts the development of entrepreneurship education and examines its diffusion from business schools across college and university campuses. Accompanying the growing diversity and number of entrepreneurship courses and degree programs are a range of extracurricular programming, such as innovative incubation programs, start-up workshops, and new venture seed funds. The development of entrepreneurship education at four universities is examined in depth and reveals how the curricular and extracurricular opportunities for students to learn entrepreneurship are often responses to internal and external influences. Overall, the chapter identifies the diversification of models employed inside and outside the classroom to impart entrepreneurial mindsets and skills to students.

Entrepreneurship in North America

This chapter examines the scope of entrepreneurial activity in the United States and Canada, and provides evidence from which to gauge expectations surrounding entrepreneurs that underscore policy and institutional efforts to enhance the role of universities in stimulating entrepreneurship. The discussion in this chapter draws on a range of data pertaining to entrepreneurial attitudes, firm creation, employment generation, innovation, and technology transfer from universities. Survey data indicate that entrepreneurship is a widespread phenomenon that contributes to net employment gains in the US and Canadian economies. Higher education plays a role in the diffusion of entrepreneurship, as universities are increasingly contributing to the formation of new companies while graduates are more likely to start businesses in high-growth industries.

Public Policy for Entrepreneurship

Federal, state, and provincial governments have become increasingly involved in nurturing entrepreneurs, particularly those working in technology-based sectors. Universities themselves have assumed a key position in entrepreneurship policy. This chapter examines contemporary policy efforts to make universities anchors of regional entrepreneurial ecosystems. These initiatives follow from national science, technology, and innovation agendas, and harbour expectations to address competitiveness challenges and employment needs. At the state and provincial level, universities have come to the forefront over the last few decades in policies supporting high-tech entrepreneurship, and initiatives dealing with entrepreneurship have become part of the expectations of policymakers. Public policies are an important source of funding for entrepreneurship programs and help to encourage and legitimize entrepreneurial learning and practice in universities.

The Entrepreneurship Movement

Entrepreneurship is widely accepted and even celebrated today in the United States and Canada. Since the 1980s, several economic, political, and social trends have thrust entrepreneurship into the public agenda and into higher education. This chapter provides an overview of how this “entrepreneurship movement” has been able to advance in higher education. In so doing, it frames the greater support for entrepreneurial learning and practice as not driven by financial or market incentives, but rather by pervasive economic, sociocultural and political trends unified in their enthusiasm and support for entrepreneurship. The entrepreneurship movement entails the ideation of entrepreneurship as an intrinsically positive set of ideas and values that can—or should—permeate higher education.