Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Network for Educational Groups in the Faculty of Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of Tehran

Oskuhi, Fatemeh; Movahed Mohammadi, Hamid; Rarezvanfar, Ahmad; Alambaigi, Amir

doi:10.22092/jaear.2025.134272

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

¹ Ph.D. in Agricultural Extension and Education, University of Tehran.Iran

² Professor, Agricultural Extension and Education Department, University of Tehran.Iran

³ Associate Professor, Agricultural Extension and Education Department, University of Tehran.Iran

10.22092/jaear.2025.134272

Abstract

The entrepreneurial ecosystem within universities is crucial for entrepreneurial activities as it not only acts as a lubricant to accelerate the commercialization of knowledge but also provides a framework for maintaining sustainable development in university entrepreneurship and contributes to its dynamism. This research aims to investigate the importance of networking within the university entrepreneurial ecosystem. Our perspective is applied, focusing on identifying and analyzing the relationships between educational groups and other related educational groups/organizations, both intra-group and inter-group, as well as external to the university, to facilitate the transition from idea to market. In this context, eight expert faculty members with technology or innovation ownership or relevant experience (key academic informants) were selected based on their expertise in entrepreneurship and innovation. The research tools included a semi-structured questionnaire and interviews. The interviews were designed around six main axes covering topics such as communication networks, challenges in technology commercialization, and intra-group and inter-group transactions. The analysis of the social networks of educational groups, using UCINET software, led to the examination of the primary communication networks within educational groups to achieve technology/innovation. According to the findings from the network analysis, the structure of the university entrepreneurial ecosystem follows a distinctive relational pattern, where key network indicators highlight the vital roles of specific educational groups and intermediary institutions. At the institutional level, the Entrepreneurship Faculty and the Science and Technology Park have effectively acted as knowledge brokers, creating a significant bridge between academic actors and market sectors. From the perspective of internal cohesion, network density indicates the existence of strong collaborative infrastructures within the ecosystem, although this indicator simultaneously reveals a structural challenge due to weak connections with the fields of humanities (especially economics and agricultural promotion). Therefore, the effectiveness of this ecosystem is based on a triangular synergy: specialized academic cores as engines for technology production, interdisciplinary collaborations as lubricants for developing integrated solutions, and institutional-industrial support (including the Ministry of Agriculture, the Science and Technology Park, and the Iranian Plant Pathology Society) facilitating the transition from laboratory to market, enabling the sustainable transformation of innovative ideas into commercialized products in the agricultural sector.

Keywords

Main Subjects

Agricultural education

References

• آراسته، ح.ر.، و امیری، ا. (1391). نقش دانشگاه‌ها در آموزش توسعه پایدار. نشریه نشا علم، دوره 2، شماره 2، ص 22-36. • سند چشم‌انداز دانشگاه تهران در افق ۱۴۰۴. (1390). معاونت برنامه‌ریزی و فناوری اطلاعات، اداره کل برنامه، بودجه و تحول سازمانی، دانشگاه تهران.

• صفدری رنجبر، م.، عطارپور، م. ر. (1400). نگاهی به زیست بوم علم، فناوری و نوآوری در ایران (گزارش کامل)، اندیشکده سیاست پژوهان علم، فناوری و نوآوری، تهران. ایران. در دسترس: https://iranthinktanks.com/a-look-at-the-ecology-of-science-technology-and-innovation-in-iran/

• نورمحمدی نجف آبادی، ر.، کریمی، ا.، و جمشیدی، ع. (1401). شناسایی عوامل مؤثر دانشگاهی در ایجاد اکوسیستم کارآفرینی منطقه‌ای- مورد مطالعه دانشگاه‌های آزاد استان اصفهان. سیاست نامه علم و فناوری، 12(2)، 84-106.

• Agarwal, R., and Shah, S. K. (2014). Knowledge sources of entrepreneurship: Firm formation by academic, user, and employee innovators. Research Policy, 43, 1109–1133. • Boh, W. F., De-Haan, U., and Strom, R. (2016). University technology transfer through entrepreneurship: Faculty and students in spinoffs. Journal of Technology Transfer, 41, 661–669.

• Botti, A., & Monda, A. (2020). Sustainable Value Co-Creation and Digital Health: The Case of Trentino eHealth Ecosystem. Sustainability, 12(13), 5263. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12135263

• Chen, C., Abbasi, B. N., & Sohail, A. (2022). Scientific Research of Innovation Ability of Universities in the United States of America and China. Sustainability, 14(21), 14586.

• Duricova, V., Grunhagen, M., Bischoff, K., Varabei, T. & Blahovec, R. (2014). University-based Entrepreneurial Ecosystems: Regional Specifics in Eastern and Western Europe. In the 5th Central European Conference in Regional Science (CERS), pp.186-195.

• Etzkowitz, H., & Leydesdorff, L. (2000). The dynamics of innovation: From National Systems and “Mode 2” to a Triple Helix of university–industry–government relations. Research Policy, 29(2), 109-123.

• Fetters, M., Greene, P.G., Rice, M.P. (2010). The Development of University-Based Entrepreneurship Ecosystems, Global Practices. Edward Elgar Publishing.‏

• Fichter, K., and Tiemann, I. (2018). Factors influencing university support for sustainable entrepreneurship: Insights from explorative case studies. Journal of Cleaner Production, 175, 512-524.

• Fini, R., Fu, K., Mathisen, M. T., Rasmussen, E., & Wright, M. (2018). Institutional determinants of university spin-off quantity and quality: A longitudinal, multilevel, cross-country study. Small Business Economics, 53(2), 313-344.

• Gobble, M. M. (2014). Charting the innovation ecosystem. Research-technology management, 57(4), 55-59.

• Hayter, C. S., Nelson, A. J., Zayed, S., & O’Connor, A. C. (2018). Conceptualizing academic entrepreneurship ecosystems: A review, analysis and extension of the literature. The Journal of Technology Transfer, 43, 1039-1082.‏

• Hayter, C.S. (2016). Constraining entrepreneurial development: A knowledge-based view of social networks among academic entrepreneurs. Research Policy, 45, 475–490.

• Johnson, D., Gianiodis, P. T., Harrison, R. T., & Bock, A. J. (2023). From laboratory to clinic: science commercialization within university‐centered entrepreneurial ecosystems. R&D Management, 53(1), 3-23.

• Johnson, E., Hemmatian, I., Lanahan, L., & Joshi, A. M. (2022). A framework and databases for measuring entrepreneurial ecosystems. Research Policy, 51(2), 104398.‏

• Krishna, V. V., Zhang, X., & Jiang, Y. (2025). The Rise of Chinese Universities: Research, Innovation and Building World-class Universities. Science, Technology and Society, 30(1), 162-180. (Original work published 2025)

• Malecki, E. J. (2018). Entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial ecosystems. Geography Compass, 12(3), 1–21.

• Mason, C., and Brown, R. (2014). Entrepreneurial ecosystems and growth-oriented entrepreneurship. Final report to OECD, Paris, 30 (1), 77-102.

• Meshram, S. A., & Rawani, A. M. (2019). Understanding entrepreneurial ecosystem. International Journal of Social Ecology and Sustainable Development (IJSESD), 10(3), 103-115.

• Moore, J. F. (1993). Predators and prey: A new ecology of competition. Harvard Business Review, 71, 75–86.

• Moore, J.F. (1996). The death of competition. Fortune, 133(7), 142.

• Nykänen, R. (2018). Entrepreneurial Insights into Developing the Entrepreneurship Ecosystem in Finland: The High Importance of Mentoring and Networking in Nascent Entrepreneurship. School of Business, Master's thesis.

• Pidorycheva, I. Y. (2020). Innovation ecosystem in contemporary economic research. Economy of industry, 2 (90), 54-92.

• Qian, H. (2018). Knowledge-based regional economic development: A synthetic review of knowledge spillovers, entrepreneurship, and entrepreneurial ecosystems. Economic Development Quarterly, 32(2), 163-176.

• Rice, M. P., Fetters, M. L., Greene, P. G. (2010). University-based entrepreneurship ecosystems: key success factors and recommendations. Global practices. Cheltenham, UK: Elgar, 177–196.

• Rodríguez-Aceves, L., Mojarro-Durán, B., and Muñíz-Ávila, E. (2019). University-based entrepreneurial ecosystems: Evidence from technology transfer policies and infrastructure. In Handbook of research on ethics, entrepreneurship, and governance in higher education (pp. 455-475). IGI Global.

• Ruokolainen, T., & Kutvonen, L. (2012). Framework for managing features of open service ecosystems. In Handbook of research on service-oriented systems and non-functional properties: Future directions (pp. 491-523). IGI Global.

• Shabunina, V., Labenko, O., Horbachenko, A., Tsuprun, T., & Sydorenko, O. (2024). Technologies and Innovations in the Educational Process: Experience of the University of the Future. Futurity Education, 4(3), 145–168.

• Spigel, B. (2017). The relational organization of entrepreneurial ecosystems. Entrepreneurship theory and practice, 41(1), 49-72.

• Stam, E., & Spigel, B. (2018). Entrepreneurial ecosystems. In R. Blackburn, D. De Clercq, J. Heinonen (Eds.) Entrepreneurial Ecosystems (pp. 407-421). SAGE Publications Ltd, https://doi.org/10.4135/9781473984080.n21

• Teece, D. J. (1986). Profiting from technological innovation: Implications for integration, collaboration, licensing and public policy. Research Policy, 15(6), 285-305.

• Theodoraki, C., and Messeghem, K. (2017). Exploring the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the field of entrepreneurial support: a multi-level approach. International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, 31(1), 47-66.

• Thomas, L. D., Sharapov, D., & Autio, E. (2018). Linking entrepreneurial and innovation ecosystems: The case of AppCampus. In Entrepreneurial ecosystems and the diffusion of startups (pp. 35-64). Edward Elgar Publishing.Malecki, E. J. (2017). Real people, virtual places, and the spaces in between. Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, 58, 3-12.

• Vargo, S. L., Wieland, H., & Akaka, M. A. (2015). Innovation through institutionalization: A service ecosystems perspective. Industrial Marketing Management, 44, 63-72.

• Vargo, S.L. and Lusch, R.F. (2014). Inversions of service-dominant logic. Marketing Theory, 14(3), 239–48.

• Winston Smith, S., Hannigan, T. J., and Gasiorowski, L. (2013). Accelerators and crowd-funding: Complementarity, competition, or convergence in the earliest stages of financing new ventures?. In University of Colorado-Kauffman Foundation Crowd-Funding Conference, Boulder, CO.

• Wurth, B., Stam, E. and Spigel, B. (2022). Toward an entrepreneurial ecosystem research program. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 46 (3), 729–778.

• Zahra, S.A. and Nambisan, S. (2012). Entrepreneurship and strategic thinking in business ecosystems. Business Horizons, 55(3), 219–29.

• Zou, Y., and Zhao, W. (2014). Anatomy of Tsinghua University Science Park in China: Institutional evolution and assessment. Journal of Technology Transfer, 39, 663–674.

Agricultural Education Administration Research

Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Network for Educational Groups in the Faculty of Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of Tehran

References

References

Volume 17, Issue 72 - Serial Number 72
June 2025
Pages 109-125

Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Network for Educational Groups in the Faculty of Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of Tehran

References

References

Volume 17, Issue 72 - Serial Number 72June 2025Pages 109-125

Volume 17, Issue 72 - Serial Number 72
June 2025
Pages 109-125