Alf Farrell, 2021
To inspire academics to initiate entrepreneurial intention and support them to entrepreneurial action.
Support academic entrepreneurs to find funding by purposefully leveraging knowledge, skill and strategic relationships through coaching, mentoring, performance psychology, group workshops and self-directed learning.
Activate entrepreneurial action in identifying new knowledge that can be translated. Partnering and collaborating with multidisciplinary players within the university to generate and/or translate knowledge.
Research, support postgraduates and publish to develop the field of academic entrepreneurship. Research and implement programmes supporting academic staff to expand professional influence and impact.
Coaching academics and researchers (levels three and upwards) - supporting them to engage more fully with their innovative capacity.
Mentoring academics – supporting them to engage more confidently and with more skill on issues of research planning, seeking grant funding, managing the funding cycle, handling internal and external politics, etc.
(As published in Development South Africa, 22 January 2022)
Characteristics such as innovation, creativity and futuristic thinking are related to academic entrepreneurship by influencing the attitudes which directly affect entrepreneurial action. Role integration between HEI and the industry or prior industrial work experience have been found to be one of the behaviours that might activate academic entrepreneurship in LMIC. Research of the positive or negative impact of enablers or barriers is required to guide academics in incorporating entrepreneurship as HEI engagement with society progresses. Importantly, there is a need for the development of LMIC relevant intention-based theoretical frameworks (or refinement of existing models) that recognise the resource-poor environments within which the LMIC HEI and their academics operate, and the role they are required to play in addressing the impoverished socioeconomic circumstances within which they exist.