Entrepreneurial universities and regional development: A Spanish case study

The creation of new businesses has an important influence on economic growth, employment and innovation. In this process, Entrepreneurial Universities play an important role in providing opportunities to promote an entrepreneurial culture, facilitating the generation of innovations and the development of the contemporary knowledge - based economy. For these reasons, in recent years, Entrepreneurial Universities has been the subject of political and academic interest. While governments are attempting to increase the Entrepreneurial Universities' capabilities to stimulate entrepreneurship and contribute to the regional development, researchers are studying what are the most critical elements involved in this phenomenon. In an attempt to consider both perspectives, our main purpose in this chapter is to analyze how the Entrepreneurial Universities can contribute to the regional development. To this end, the missions of two of the most entrepreneurial universities in Spain, the Autonomous University of Barcelona and the University of Seville, are examined in depth using the case study methodology. The main findings of the research show that both Universities have developed an important number of actions in order to fulfill their three missions (teaching, research, and entrepreneurial mission), to become more entrepreneurial Universities and to increase their contribution to the regional development. The implementation of entrepreneurial methodologies and courses, the stimulus of positive attitudes toward entrepreneurship, the support for technology transfer and the development of appropriate reward systems have been some of the most successful actions adopted by the universities.