Abstract

Entrepreneurship is the procedure of a new business development to make a profit in the market. In many countries, Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs) in research-driven universities serve as an intermediary between suppliers of innovations and those who can potentially commercialize them. TTOs are always run as cost-centers on campus, often have business or operation managers, and facilitate intellectual property licensing activities. In the United Arab Emirates (UAE), TTOs are taking an important role in the evolution of a successful spin-off company from innovation to production to sales to sustainable profit. An innovative technology may be a research outcome and seem to have value as an application or product with commercial potential in the market. In this context, TTOs often support spin-off companies becoming a learning organization and easing into an articulated management of activities complementary to the research and design activities that create the innovation and drive the transition from innovation to product lines. That is, even though such academic entrepreneurs have built and run entities that are similar to small businesses, and even though these entrepreneurs have learned how to secure and manage revenues to sustain cash flows for their companies, they still may not be sustainable in the market. The long term of this research study aims to investigate the current situation of research-driven university entrepreneurship in UAE. This paper presents a preliminary study of two TTOs: Etisalat BT Innovation Center (EBTIC) at Khalifa University and Masdar Institute.

Document Type

Article

Publisher

Zayed University

Publication Date

2017

Author First name, Last name, Institution

Farkhund Iqbal
Patrick Hung
Suaad Mohammed Mohammed

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