International audienceThis article provides a historical perspective on academic entrepreneurship and its role in institutional change, and serves as an introduction to a special issue devoted to the subject. Unlike approaches that define academic entrepreneurship narrowly as the commercialization of academic research, we argue that historical research and reasoning justify a broader conceptualization focused on the pursuit of future forms of value in academic knowledge production, application, and transmission. Understood in this way, academic entrepreneurship has long been a significant driver of institutional change, not only within the academic world but also in shaping the organization of markets and states. The article develops this argument in three major sections. First, it draws out themes implicit within the historiography of science and technology that highlight the role of entrepreneurship in reshaping academia and its relationship to society. Second, it establishes conceptual foundations for more explicitly examining the processes by which academic entrepreneurship acted as a driver of institutional change. Finally, it synthesizes the findings of the articles in the special issue pertaining to these entrepreneurial processes. The article concludes by arguing for the role of history in rethinking academic entrepreneurship in our own time, and by outlining directions for further research

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International audienceThe collection of essays introduced in this article contributes to the debate on the commercialization of academic science by shifting the focus from institutional developments meant to foster university technology transfer to the actions of individual scientists. Instead of searching for the origins of the ‘entrepreneurial university,’ this special issue examines the personal involvement of academic physicists, engineers, photographic scientists, and molecular biologists in three types of commercial activity: consulting, patenting, and full-blown business entrepreneurship. The authors investigate how this diverse group of teachers and researchers perceived their institutional and professional environments, their career prospects, the commercial value of their knowledge and reputation, and their ability to exploit these assets. By documenting academic scientists’ response to market opportunities, the articles suggest that, already in the decades around 1900, commercial work was widespread and, in some cases, integral to academics’ teaching and research activity

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In an influential book published in 1981, Martin Wiener identified cultural conservatism as a long-standing impediment to the development of science, technology, and industry in England. This approach to the analysis of the country's flagging industrial performance is, in reality, less original than the excited response to Wiener's book would suggest: the purist, literary bias in English culture has been blamed for the low status of industrial and commercial activity ever since the 1850s, when Lyon Playfair was among the leading advocates of the thesis. The authors of this paper believe that the effect of national styles in culture on industrial performance, though not negligible, has been exaggerated and that it should be re-examined. They use two main arguments, both developed with special reference to the period from 1880 to 1914 which must be regarded as decisive for the growth of modern science-based industry in Europe. First, they show, by a comparison with France, Germany, and Italy, that Britain was by no means alone in her cultural conservatism. Secondly, it is suggested that once the focus is directed to the manufacturing towns, the interaction between culture and industrial and educational practice appears far more complex than it does from an analysis based on the pronouncements of the leaders of British culture in London and the ancient universities.Dans un livre qui fit grand effet lors de sa publication en 1981, Martin Wiener révélait le coupable, dans la longue durée, du ralentissement du développement scientifique, technologique, et industriel anglais: il s'agissait du traditionnalisme culturel. Cette façon d'aborder le problème du déclin relatif de l'industrie britannique est, en réalité, moins originale que ne l'aurait laissé penser l'accueil généralement favorable fait au livre de Wiener. Dès les années 1850, Lyon Playfair, entre autres, soulignait les tendances puristes et littéraires de la culture des classes dirigeantes anglaises, tendances qui aboutissaient à dévaloriser le statut social des carrières industrielles et commerciales. Les auteurs du présent article considèrent que, dans ce domaine, l'influence des traditions culturelles a été exagérée, et qu'il y a de bonnes raisons pour l'analyser à nou-133