At the frontiers of scientific advancement: the factors that influence scientists to become or choose to become publicly funded principal investigators

Cunningham, James A.; Mangematin, Vincent; O’Kane, Conor; O’Reilly, Paul

doi:10.1007/s10961-015-9400-4

Cited by 39 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 63 publications

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“…Few studies have explored the motivations of individual academics to engage in the diverse range of university-industry knowledge transfer activities (Abreu and Grinevich, 2013;Cunningham et al, 2016a;. This is surprising considering academics are the key actor without which knowledge transfer cannot occur.…”

Section: Motivation Of Academics To Engage In Knowledge Transfermentioning

confidence: 99%

Entrepreneurial academics and academic entrepreneurs: a systematic literature review

Miller

Alexander

Cunningham

et al. 2018

IJTM

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101

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Universities are now viewed as key economic actors within regions and are central actors in shaping and influencing entrepreneurial ecosystems. This has meant that universities now have to become more entrepreneurial in offerings, outlook and culture. However, a core actor in this process who is often overlooked is the academic. The ability of an academic to effectively transfer knowledge to industry is key to universities achieving their entrepreneurial mission and ambition. This paper explores the changing roles of academics to identify key distinctions between entrepreneurial academics and academic entrepreneurs. This is done through a systematic literature review spanning 25 years drawing on selected high impact journals in innovation, entrepreneurship and higher education studies. We categorise the types of activity that academics typically engage in and identify the motivations and challenges they face. From this, we identify two types of academics, the entrepreneurial academic and academic entrepreneur. We posit that there is a need for both types of academics to contribute to the success of the entrepreneurial university and conclude by outlining some avenues for future research.K. Miller et al.

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Section: Motivation Of Academics To Engage In Knowledge Transfermentioning

confidence: 99%

Entrepreneurial academics and academic entrepreneurs: a systematic literature review

Miller

Alexander

Cunningham

et al. 2018

IJTM

Self Cite

101

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“…Being an excellent researcher is a central capability that funded PIs need to have in order to be successful in leading large-scale publicly funded projects that involve academic and industry partnerships (Cunningham et al 2015b). This is evaluated through peer review processes, where the project ideas as well as the scientific track record of the PI and associated research teams and partners are evaluated and assessed as well as the potential impacts beyond scientific ones.…”

Section: Researcher and Scientific Excellencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The foundation of this research leadership is achieved through their scientific excellence and track record. Cunningham et al (2015aCunningham et al ( , 2015b posit that the PI role has become managerial in nature in terms of the core functions of management (planning, leading, organizing, and controlling). PIs not alone become academic leaders but are viewed as institution leaders.…”

Section: Research Leadershipmentioning

confidence: 99%

Entrepreneurial ecosystem governance: a principal investigator-centered governance framework

2017

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Research on entrepreneurial ecosystems has largely taken a macro-perspective to better conceptualize and map the determinants and evolution of entrepreneurial ecosystems, yet has neglected the micro-level interactions of various entrepreneurial ecosystem actors. Recent criticisms of entrepreneurial ecosystems have centered on the lack of explicit case and effect relationships, attribution, units of analysis, the different use of network definitions as well as the static nature of existing frameworks. The purpose of our paper is to present a micro level principal investigator (PI)-centered governance framework that addresses these posited criticisms and in doing so identifies the value creation indicators (benefits), PI capabilities, the problem categories (costs), and solving mechanisms that PIs can use to govern effectively and efficiently large-scale publicly funded research programs. In leading such research programs, PIs interact with different actors within entrepreneurial ecosystems and manage governance issues, conflicts, and tensions effectively at the micro level to deliver the anticipated benefits and costs for each actor. Our framework provides the basis for future empirical research on entrepreneurial ecosystem as we have attributed cause and effect at an individual actor level and conceptualized the governance challenges at a micro rather than at the macro level that overcomes the static nature of previous frameworks.

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“…Contributing to scientific advancement, autonomy, prioritisation of new knowledge as well as status are key motivating factors for scientists (Cunningham et al 2016b;Erez and Shenerson 1980;Merton, 1968). For a scientist to be a publicly funded PI is a significant career move and this adds prestige and status.…”

Section: Pis Multiple Roles and Boundary Spanningmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The growing studies of PIs have identified that the responsibilities of PIs have expanded beyond undertaking pure scientific activities (see Cunningham et al 2016b;Menter, 2016). PIs are responsible for all aspects of publicly funded projects that they lead.…”

Section: Pi Responsibilitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Publicly funded principal investigators allocation of time for public sector entrepreneurship activities

et al. 2016

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In this paper we explore the allocation of time of publicly funded principal investigators (PIs) for public sector entrepreneurship activities. We examine their allocation of time in general to research activities and specifically at a project level in relation to the type of research, knowledge transfer activity, project impact, deliberate technology transfer strategy and boundary spanning activities using data from a full population survey of publicly funded PIs in Ireland in science, engineering and technology across national and European research programmes. We find that PIs who spend more time on general research related activities allocated a higher proportion of time to technology transfer activities and that PIs who spend more time on technology activities engaged more in end of project reports and collaborative research with industry. In relation to the importance placed on impact criteria, PIs who spend more time on research placed more importance on technology and market impacts than those spending less time on research related activities. Furthermore, PIs who spend more time on technology transfer placed greater value on technology transfer, market and economic impact. We find projects of PIs spending more time on research related activities had a greater impact on technology transfer and a greater market impact, according to the assessment of respondents, than the projects of PIs spending less time on research activities. Finally, with respect to boundary spanning activities we find PIs spending more time on research engaged more in direct consultation with industry end-users and direct consultation with their technology transfer office at the pre-proposal stage of their selected project and they had significantly larger than average amount of industry partners. We conclude our analysis by considering the implications for public sector entrepreneurship.

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At the frontiers of scientific advancement: the factors that influence scientists to become or choose to become publicly funded principal investigators

Cited by 39 publications

References 63 publications

Entrepreneurial academics and academic entrepreneurs: a systematic literature review

Entrepreneurial academics and academic entrepreneurs: a systematic literature review

Entrepreneurial ecosystem governance: a principal investigator-centered governance framework

Publicly funded principal investigators allocation of time for public sector entrepreneurship activities

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