Abstract
This paper examines attempts by French and UK governments to fill the gap between the US and Europe with respect to the creation of academic spin-offs. Analysis of the contrasting cases of the UK and France, shows that there is no convergence of national policies to foster the creation of firms by academics. Rather, the two countries demonstrate different rationales and approaches to policy in this area. In UK, the rationale for spin-off policy is mainly to develop a third stream of financing. Spin-offs are a part of a policy to commercialize technology and knowledge created by universities. Policy is at the university level, leading to the creation of diverse structures. Public schemes bring public money directly to universities. In France, the rationale for policy towards the creation of new ventures by academics is the development of high technology new ventures as part of a technological entrepreneurship policy. The notion of a third stream of financing for universities is an argument that is never advanced. The UK has placed the universities at the heart of policies aimed at the creation of spin-offs, this is not the case in France.
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Notes
As noted earlier, these changes have occurred in the wider context of governments increasingly disengaging from large military and civil programmes, and looking towards the support of SMEs and high-tech firms, using public sector research as a major vehicle. In 2005, two new agencies were created. The first one is the Agence de l’Innovation Industrielle (AII), which will finance the new Programme Mobilisateurs pour l’Innovation Industrielle. The first six large research programmes involving 600 million euros of funding, 236 million euros of which are to be provided by AII, were launched in April 2006. These programmes focus on the Internet (Quaero), biotech (BioHub), telecoms (TVMSL), the built environment (Homes), transport (NeoVal) and the green car. This agency was removed in November 2007.
The second programme is the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR), whose objective is to increase the number of research projects across the scientific community which will be financed after peer evaluation of competitive bids. The main idea behind the creation of this Agency is that project based research funding is widespread in many foreign countries and constitutes a factor of dynamism to explore the borders of science. ANR is effectively envisaged as a French NSF, with a budget for 2006 of 800 million euros for research projects of a duration of four years maximum.
Medical Research Council (MRC), Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC), Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils (CLRC) and the Arts and humanities Research Board (AHRB).
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Financial support from the PRIME network is acknowledged as are comments from an anonymous referee.
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Mustar, P., Wright, M. Convergence or path dependency in policies to foster the creation of university spin-off firms? A comparison of France and the United Kingdom. J Technol Transf 35, 42–65 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10961-009-9113-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10961-009-9113-7