2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Factors Influencing Academic Researchers’ Motivation for Technology Commercialization and Entrepreneurship: An Overview of the Literature

Presented at Entrepreneurship & Engineering Innovation Division (ENT) Technical Session 6: Undergraduate and Faculty Research

There is a significant movement at research universities to catalyze faculty and graduate student involvement in the commercialization of university-based discovery, an activity often referred to as “academic entrepreneurship.” This is driven by the desire of universities and government entities to transform huge investments being made in basic research, into products and technologies that benefit society. While awareness of technology commercialization and entrepreneurship has grown, and to some degree it has been legitimized as an academic activity, relatively few engineers and scientists are motivated to become involved. Many individual and contextual factors are believed to influence these decisions. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the literature around the motivations, beliefs, goals, needs, values, and barriers driving researchers’ decisions to engage in academic entrepreneurship.

Authors

Dr. Nathalie Duval-Couetil http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0260-0208 Purdue University at West Lafayette (COE) [biography]

Nathalie Duval-Couetil is the Director of the Certificate in Entrepreneurship and Innovation Program, Associate Director of the Burton D. Morgan Center, and a Professor in the Department of Technology Leadership and Innovation at Purdue University. She is
Dr. Alanna D. Epstein http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3314-9579 University of Michigan [biography]

Alanna D. Epstein is an Assistant Research Scientist studying motivation, instruction, and entrepreneurial outcomes in the context of the NSF Innovation Corps ("I-Corps") training program. She received her Ph.D. from the Combined Program in Education and Psychology at the University of Michigan, and her Bachelor's degree in psychology was completed at Oberlin College. Her dissertation work focused on the longitudinal development high school students' motivational beliefs about math, English, science, and social studies. Other research interests of hers include the formation of career aspirations, the school-to-work transition, and the differential participation in science, technology, engineering, and math fields based on social identity groups such as gender and Racial/Ethnic identity.
Dr. Aileen Huang-Saad Northeastern University [biography]

In February 2021 Dr. Huang-Saad joined the Bioengineering faculty at Northeastern University and became the Director
of Life Sciences and Engineering Programs at The Roux Institute (Portland, Maine). Dr. Huang-Saad has a fourteen-
year history of bringi

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