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

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

This article analyzes Leo Baekeland’s efforts to secure patent protection on “Bakelite,” the synthetic plastic resin that he invented in 1907, and to exploit the resulting intellectual property rights. It connects the transfer of Baekeland’s intellectual property (IP) to a German-based company with Baekeland’s entrepreneurial choices and IP record in the United States. It also shows that Baekeland’s experiences with European patent regimes shaped his criticism of the U.S. model. His attempts to address perceived shortcomings of the U.S. patent regime, however, did not lead to a satisfactory outcome.

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