Brazilian Universities Incubators: A Panorama from Activities and GDP Perspective

Abstract

The entrepreneurship can collaborate to the economy and solve environmental problems by contributing to achieve the university third mission through the incubators process as the majority of technology transfer mechanisms. However, Brazilian universities incubators are less developed than the ones from United States and Europe. Therefore, this paper aims to explore Brazilian universities incubators from an activities and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) perspective. As a result, we identified 122 incubators that are from public universities, in their majority and work mainly in social entrepreneurship and base-technology sectors. Universities installed in cities with a high GDP have a restricted number of activities compared to other economic classes, as well as in lower class there are an interesting number of incubators focused on promoting and creating jobs and income generation, corroborating the role of the universities third mission. Incubators are still in consolidation in Brazil, which reflects the early stage of innovation in universities and industries. Recent studies are recommended in the area of incubator management and effectiveness of technology transfer.