Abstract

It is widely acknowledged that universities contribute to the economic development of their region. This positive impact is achieved by transferring knowledge and technology from within the university to industrial partners and more broadly to society. One specific way through which knowledge and technology is transferred is by creating a spin-off venture. A spin-off is a new venture that commercializes knowledge and/or technology that was developed at the university.

Last year (2021) eight spin-off ventures were launched at Ghent University. Of those eight, one spin-off was in the field of social sciences and humanities and the others were in the field of life sciences and physical sciences (e.g., electronics, medtech, bio-engineering,… ). This is not surprising given the fact that TechTransfer office (TTO) – experts who give advice to founders of spin-off ventures – have typically overlooked the entrepreneurial potential in the field of social sciences and humanities. Instead, TTO have focused on those fields whose knowledge and technology can be protected through patents. However, academic literature seems to suggest that this strategy has failed to pay off because most university spin-off remain relatively small ventures (e.g., Vohora, Wright & Lockett, 2004).

Several questions arise: why are there relatively little SSHA spin-offs? Can SSHA spin-offs outperform spin-offs from other fields? And, more broadly, what is the impact of spin-offs in the field of social sciences and humanities?

These questions will be answered by presenting and comparing spin-off cases that were founded at Ghent University.