Initiatives to promote commercialization of university knowledge

In addition to teaching and research, universities are increasingly expected to take on technology transfer and commercialization as a part of their mission. This development gives new challenges to the institutions in making initiatives to promote commercialization of university knowledge. Through case studies of four European universities of science and technology in Finland, Ireland, Norway and Sweden, this article analyses several commercialization initiatives. All four universities have increased their commercialization activities and focus the last two decades, and have a more or less full range of support mechanisms for entrepreneurship. The challenge seems to be how to coordinate them with each other and with the traditional university activities. (c) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.