Inventors and entrepreneurs in academia: What types of skills and experience matter?

This paper aims to improve our understanding of the attributes of academic researchers that influence the capacity to contribute to technical advance, by adding to the pool of technological opportunities available to industry or engaging in the exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities. We investigate a number of factors associated with the skills developed by academic researchers. We find that contributions to the pool of technological opportunities and exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities involve different sets of skills and expertise of scientists. Our results show that the former is driven by academic scientists' research excellence and discovery of earlier technological opportunities and the latter is driven by previous collaboration with industry partners, scientific breadth and experience of technological discovery.

► To understand the factors influencing the skills of scientists to contribute to technical advance.
► Contribution to technological opportunities is influenced by research excellence and earlier discoveries.
► Exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities is shaped by collaboration with firms and scientific breadth.
► Data from a survey of UK scientists on academic entrepreneurship, including 1528 valid responses.