University Incubator: Comparative Analysis, Pathways to Impact and Relative Regional Effects

Universities play a unique role in business startup support. They not only finance incubators to support startups and contribute to their survival and growth, but these incubators are also managed by the university alongside spin-outs with other local businesses. 

In addition, university funding seems to be highly significant for some regions (North East of England, Wales and the West Midlands) and some sectors (Agritech, Transport, Space & Satellite). 

This project investigates university incubators and, as part of a wider regional innovation system, how they facilitate economic development and growth by developing comparative indicators to measure impact and gain insights into the pathways of how this is done.  

WMREDI

Research Theme 3

Regional Innovation Ecosystem

Blogs

International Women's Day: Female Entrepreneurship in the UK
Dr Juliane Schwarz, City-REDI Blog, March 2023

Accelerator Programmes and the COVID-19 Pandemic
Dr Juliane Schwarz, City-REDI Blog, February 2021

University Incubators as Part of a Wider Regional Innovation System
Dr Juliane Schwarz, City-REDI Blog, February 2021

Why is the West Midlands Attractive to Private R&D Investments but Not Government Funding?
Dr Chloe Billing, City-REDI Blog, June 2020

Enabling Local R&D Systems to Drive Growth
Professor Simon Collinson, City-REDI Blog, December 2020

From Great R&D to Better Outcomes for the UK
Professor Simon Collinson, City-REDI Blog, December 2020

Incubators, Accelerators and Local Economic Development
Dr Max Nathan, City-REDI Blog, October 2018

Get in touch

Project lead contact details: 

Dr Juliane Schwarz

Project Support contact details: 

Matthew Patterson, Administrative Assistant, City-REDI / WMREDI 

Related work

Incubators, Accelerators and Urban Economic Development

Margardia Madaleno, Max Nathan, Henry Overman, Sevrin Waights - Sage Journal, May 2021

Different founders, different venture outcomes: A comparative analysis of academic and non-academic startups
Maria P. Roche, Annamaria Contic, Frank T.Rothaermel, Research Policy - December 2020

Innovative start-ups and policy initiatives
David Audretsch, Alessandra Colombelli, Luca Grilli, Tommaso Minola, Einar Rasmussen, Research Policy - December 2020

Entrepreneurial University Ecosystems
SQW - September 2020

What do we know about Youth Entrepreneurship in the UK? A Review of Evidence 
Enterprise Research Centre - September 2020

The Missing £4 Billion
Tom Forth and Richard Jones, Nesta - May 2020

The impact of business accelerators and incubators in the UK
Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy -  October 2019

Connected clusters: landscaping study: Clustering innovation to create thriving and prosperous low-carbon cities and regions
University of Birmingham - 2019

Assessing the business performance effects of receiving publicly-funded science, research and innovation grants
Enterprise Research Centre - September 2017

WMREDI is funded by Research England and the WMREDI partnership

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