Managing Strategic Partnerships with Universities in Innovation Ecosystems: A Research Agenda

This paper proposes a research agenda for understanding how to establish and develop strategic partnerships with universities in innovation ecosystems, aimed to support the development of companies’ entrepreneurial and innovation development capacities. In particular, the paper suggests an integrated model to explore how universities and companies establish, manage, and assess collaborative relationships to foster entrepreneurial and innovative capacity. The framework identifies four fundamental dimensions that characterise the role and function mechanisms of successful collaborative relationships: (1) the entrepreneurial learning network dynamics and the transformational patterns affecting the development of entrepreneurial capital of university-based innovation ecosystems; (2) the role and features of the university-based organisational units to support companies’ entrepreneurial and innovative development in innovation ecosystems; (3) the organisational models and factors influencing a company’s capacity to establish successful partnerships with universities and to develop entrepreneurial and innovative capabilities; and (4) the approaches, models, and tools that can support universities and companies to design, implement, and assess partnerships and initiatives aimed to develop entrepreneurial and innovative capabilities.