Who really acts as an entrepreneur in the science commercialisation process: the role of knowledge transfer intermediary organisations

2.1 Knowledge transfer and commercialisation as an entrepreneurial process

Entrepreneurship as a socio-economic phenomenon has been studied through the lenses of different theoretical and methodological perspectives, assuming different levels of analysis (Low and MacMillan, 1988). Shane and Venkataraman (2000) defined three important conditions for the appearance of entrepreneurship: the existence of entrepreneurial opportunities, their discovery and the decision to exploit them. Referring to the knowledge transfer and commercialisation it seems to be interesting but ignored in most studies that recognition of entrepreneurial opportunities may be to some point shared between scientists and intermediary organisations, which intervene in the process.

Krueger (2000) claimed that the opportunities are the object of creation which is supported by the critical factors related to the perceptions and cognitive structures of individuals. Alvarez and Busenitz (2003) included the cognitive capacity of individual entrepreneurs into the resources-based theory, referring to the opportunity recognition and the process of combining and organising resources. Because commercialisation transforms from a technology-driven process into a market-driven process (Spilling, 2004), it may occur via academic entrepreneurship, that is the founding of a firm with the objective to commercially exploit a patented invention, or in some cases, a body of unpatented expertise (Shane, 2004). While scientists are actors who create new knowledge, sometimes they may lack cognitive capacity for recognising entrepreneurial opportunities and transforming it into economically useful knowledge, so they need support from other entities through education (Linton and Xu, 2021). According to Audretsch and Kayalar-Erdem (2005), there is a void in our understanding how universities and public policies impact cognitive processes of scientists in both recognising entrepreneurial opportunities and taking the decision to become an entrepreneur. This is why the role of intermediary organisations like technology transfer centres, in this context should be explored.

The mechanism that allows to change scientific knowledge into economically useful knowledge requires entrepreneurial resources (e.g. scientifically trained personnel) and activities, however, scientists can act as entrepreneurs starting and running their own knowledge-based ventures, or they may be employed in other enterprises that exploit knowledge-based entrepreneurial opportunities (Witt and Zellner, 2005). Also, the character of knowledge (tacit or encoded) is of great importance in this process. The commercialisation of tacit knowledge without the participation of the scientist is practically impossible, while encoded knowledge can be reproduced by other members of the entrepreneurial team (Witt and Zellner, 2005).

We agree that in the commercialisation process the entrepreneurial competences are needed, but, according to the adopted form of the commercialisation effects (e.g. spin-off venture creation or licensing) the scientist who participated in the research project can be personally involved and act as an entrepreneur or not. It depends on many factors related to his or her entrepreneurial intentions, motivations, attitudes and ability to recognise opportunities. This group of factors relates to the individual characteristics of academic entrepreneurs, such as creativity, risk propensity or self-confidence. For example, Miranda et al. (2017) have studied the determinants of academics’ entrepreneurial intentions in Spanish universities. According to the results of their study, the entrepreneurial intentions of academics in this country were explained by entrepreneurial attitudes influenced by creativity and perceived utility regarding income, work effort and risk involved in the process.

According to Audretch and Keilbach (2007), entrepreneurial opportunities should not be taken for granted, because they are rather created by investments in knowledge and ideas generated by incumbent organisations (e.g. firms or universities). In their KSTE, the attention is given to the different external conditions for entrepreneurship. It means that more knowledge existing in a given context will generate more entrepreneurial opportunities, and entrepreneurship or entrepreneurial activity serves as a “conduit facilitating the spillover and commercialisation of that knowledge” (Acs et al., 2009; Audretch and Keilbach, 2007, p. 1246). In line with this theory, in different countries and institutional contexts, different conditions for knowledge-based entrepreneurial opportunities exist.

Davey et al. (2016) have investigated the influence of context on academic entrepreneurship in different European countries. According to these authors, specific institutional conditions at the national level affect the perception of the drivers and barriers for academic entrepreneurship. The results confirmed the lowest extent of academic entrepreneurship in the Eastern Europe region (with selected countries: Poland, Hungary and Romania) as compared to other studied regions. Moreover, this region was marked by the highest barriers and the lowest drivers of the university-business collaboration. In all studied regions, cultural and funding barriers for academic entrepreneurship were identified (Davey et al., 2016). In relation to the barriers of academic entrepreneurship in Poland, Brendzel-Skowera (2016) points out that the internal conditions of the universities’ functioning are responsible for this situation. In contrast, for example, in Italy, the impact of context at the university level for the innovative performance of university spin-offs was confirmed, especially in case of universities with business incubators and science parks (Corsi and Prencipe, 2016).

Hayter (2013) stressed the importance of entrepreneurship networks as the source of knowledge, information and resources. In the process of research, commercialisation networks can help reduce the deficiency in different aspects of KBE of the potential academic entrepreneurs. Considering the above mentioned internal and external factors that shape the ability of academic community to commercialise their inventions through the entrepreneurial behavior and drawing on the above literature, we developed our conceptual framework of the research as presented in Figure 1.

KBE and related academic entrepreneurship is seen in the literature as the vehicle which helps transfer scientific knowledge into commercial applications, and for that, to improve the level of competitiveness and innovativeness of the economy and social prosperity. In the research and development (R&D) results, commercialisation process and entrepreneurial activities are needed to identify entrepreneurial opportunities or to organise resources. Entrepreneurial capacity of academic community members has to be strengthened by institutional environment, both formal and informal. Especially in CEE countries, which experimented the transition from centrally planned into a free market-based economy, which was also related to a lack of trust in business and social environment (Brooks et al., 2019).

2.2 Research commercialisation in the context of transition economies

The second part of the theoretical background explores the research commercialisation process in the institutional context of transition economies, with a special emphasis on the role of intermediary organisations (e.g. academic entrepreneurship incubators or technology transfer centres). Assuming the importance of KBE in research commercialisation, intermediary organisations can help develop or improve some part of entrepreneurial capabilities of academic community members, and in some cases, they may even try to supplement insufficient entrepreneurial competency (e.g. ability to organise external resources), depending on the forms and expected effects in the research commercialisation process (O’Gorman et al., 2008).

Commercialisation of research results is a multidimensional process that enables the innovator (the creator of innovation) to achieve economic benefits from the implementation of scientific research results into business practice. In-depth recognition of the inventions’ advantages and assessment of its market potential are indispensable elements of the process (Fini et al., 2018). Therefore, commercialisation enables the flow of innovation from the basic research to commercial entities and then to public use (Van Norman and Eisenkot, 2017). Based on the European Union (EU) definition, commercialisation brings intellectual property to the market for generating future profits and business growth, turning products or services into commercially noticeable value (European Union, 2016). In this process, universities are seen as an effective vehicle for knowledge and technology transfer providing intellectual property, licensing, patenting, franchising, spin-off and spin-out companies.

In the literature data there are number of different commercialisation paths like:

• selling the outcome of research;

• grant licensing of R&D outcomes; and

• making research contributions to the firms.

The process of commercialisation was wildly described by scholars as a stage model process which may vary between a very simple to a more sophisticated approach (Bercovitz and Feldmann, 2006; Jolly, 1997; Kozmetzky et al., 2004; Virttanen and Laukanen, 2002). It starts out with idea generation through the incubation process, new venture creation and possible established business activity. Klincewicz (2011) sees it as the process of implementing and offering an innovative product (technology) to customers. Kluczek (2011) highlights that commercialisation is the whole activity aimed at transferring knowledge from the laboratory to the market. Commercialisation of research involves activities aimed at developing a business model, designing the process of selling technologies on market, ensuring that a potentially valuable invention creates technology-based added value.

A large pool of publications defined two main ways of commercialisation, i.e. direct commercialisation through direct sell of research results with contracted receipt of royalties (Bradley et al., 2013; Jensen and Thursby, 2001; Powers and McDougall, 2005; Wnuk and Tommei, 2015) or indirect commercialisation (creating a company that was founded by inventors coming from the same scientific institution in a form of spin-off, spin-out or start-up or by gaining a license for the developed solution) (Shane, 2004; Szulczewska-Remi, 2016). Thus, studies that explain commercialisation of university research refer to KSTE as Acs et al. (2013) point out: “By commercialising the ideas that evolved from an incumbent organisation but commercialised independent of this organisation via the creation of a new firm, the entrepreneurs not only serve as a conduit for the spillover of knowledge but also for the ensuing innovative activity and enhanced economic performance.” Furthermore, in the context of KSTE, the authors described a number of factors that influence differences between regions and countries in fostering the process of knowledge transfer. One of the most important one is the role of stakeholders that intermediate in commercialisation like special purpose vehicles (SPVs) or special purpose entities (SPEs), entrepreneurship centres, science and technology parks, technoparks, academic incubators, technology transfer offices or centres (TTO) (Kolympiris and Klein, 2017; O’Kane et al., 2015; Siegel et al., 2007; Wright et al., 2008;) described lately by Kher and Lyons (2020) as university-based venture development organisations (VDOs). Based on research by Belitski et al. (2019), we assume the theoretical framework for these studies builds on the university organisational structures that support the commercialisation perspective of the KSTE where only their organisational level with the individual perspective of KSTE and university perspective is taken into account.

Applying this, the role of administrative units within universities that support commercialisation is to identify targeted market and implementation, providing research infrastructure, building relations with industry, generating royalties and funding support for university research and stimulate new venture creations like spin-offs (Clarysse et al., 2011b; Wright et al., 2009). Fitzgerald and Cunningham (2016) based on Irish universities research suggest that TTOs’ missions are to manage the university created discoveries, exploit created intellectual property and to promote regional growth economic development and job creation through, e.g. start-up initiatives. Intermediaries are therefore especially important for science-based entrepreneurial companies to overcome information and resource asymmetries and to help young innovative entrepreneurs to refine their ideas and business plans, reducing the transaction costs arising during commercialisation. It has also been studied that VDOs play an essential role in coordinating networks between the science-based community and industry (Clayton et al., 2018). Previous work by Capat and Sandelin (2004) also suggested TTO roles in recruiting faculty and graduate students. This however refers more to the whole of activities related to sharing the results of scientific research, the term often used in the context of a wide and universal transfer of research results. Though, van Norman and Eisenkot (2017) emphasise that research commercialisation covers all of activities related strictly to the provision of access to research results to third parties or the transfer of results to such entities.

In developed countries, commercialisation intermediating organisations model involvement is well described (Siegel et al., 2003) starting with scientific discovery followed by the invention disclosure signed by the authors with the TTO or other university settings. At this point, the decision about intellectual property rights is made, e.g. whether to patent the invention. The next stage usually involves market research identifying possibilities for licencing or selling followed by seeking an investor or entrepreneur. In the last stage, an invention is finally converted into a commercialised product with or without university engagement, e.g. in the case of spin-off or spin-out venture faculty members can act as active board members or scientific consultants. Several successful examples have been implemented like the 3GU model at the University of Oxford, the Office of Technology Licencing of Stanford University or the Office of Intellectual Property and Industry Research Alliances at UC Berkeley. However, Dvouletý et al. (2018) point out that effective solutions from established economies cannot be taken for granted as they depend on the quality of organisations in economies. Malerba et al. (2016), who examined the growth of knowledge-intensive entrepreneurship in China, India, and Russia, noticed that a series of policies in these countries have been launched to provide a favourable entrepreneurial environment like several science and technology parks in China that attract returnees from Western countries to use their knowledge. In Russia, the main emphasis is placed on early-stage development, high-tech companies; the main hurdle is that innovative enterprises never mature to world-class players. According to Belitski et al. (2019), universities in transition countries do not have the same organisational flexibility and a well-defined academic entrepreneurial culture.

To identify wider technology and knowledge, intermediary functions in Eastern European countries, we use examples of Poland and the Czech Republic (Czechia). Both countries experienced economic transformation into ones of the most robust in Central Europe with gross domestic product (GDP) US$586m for Poland and US$244,1m for Czechia. In terms of GDP per capita US$15k versus US$22.9k, respectively. Also, both countries are classified as moderate innovators according to the European Innovation Scoreboard (2019), however for the performance between 2011 and 2018 Poland improved by 7.8%, especially after 2015, while the Czech Republic, 3.5%. Poland was classified above the EU average in the innovation-friendly category and improved by 155.7% (highest growth in the EU) during the same period of time. Similarly, total entrepreneurial activity of Poland (8.3%) was above the EU average (6.7%) (European Innovation Scoreboard, European Commission, 2019). Surprisingly, innovators, which was one of the most important innovation dimensions for the Czech Republic, was Poland’s weakest dimension. Stemberkova et al. (2016) noticed, while comparing the relative number of patent applications, the largest increase for Poland and Czechia compared with 2005 and 2011. Special attention should be given to the motivational index which has improved recently for those two countries. In the case of Poland, opportunity-driven entrepreneurship has even overpassed the necessity-driven entrepreneurship. Poland also has a high share of the population who completed tertiary education. On the other hand, Poland has less attractive research systems and worse indicators of innovators in the population of SMEs, firm investments and public and business R&D expenditure than does the Czech Republic (European Commission, 2019).

In the past couple of years, Polish and Czech scientists and entrepreneurs have begun to recognise the necessity of translating research results into market-valuable innovations. However, the history of knowledge commercialisation and its intermediating entities in these countries is relatively young. In Poland in 2014, the Ministry of Higher Education amended the Higher Education Act that has given universities a great deal of leeway in developing their own commercialisation systems. In the Czech Republic, the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic (TACR), main governmental body on the support of research and innovation, only in 2013 and 2014 initiated a series of studies to identify the current major barriers that limit effective commercialisation. Based on their findings, TTOs are not well anchored within research organisations and their actions are not fully underutilised (TACR, 2014). Moreover, Andera and Lukeš (2016) noticed that in Czechia there is no public register of entrepreneurship supporting institutions like business incubators.

Similarly, consistent with the “Polish Applied Sciences” report (PAP Foundation, 2018) academic institutions in Poland do not sufficiently support scientists who commercialise their research and there is a general lack of trust between science and business, subsequently leading to the lack of R&D financing from large domestic corporations rather than governmental funds. Munari et al. (2016) found out that in Poland and in the Czech Republic university-industry technology transfer is mainly founded by a central ministry or by a national innovation agency rather than a regional innovation agency typical for countries with prolonged practice in technology transfer and more developed commercialisation systems. One of the major problems in Czechia is also associated with low effectiveness of TTOs caused by low qualifications of technology transfer professionals (Dvorák and Ciharová, 2013). As confirmed by Munari et al. (2018) in Eastern European countries TTOs are much smaller (approximately nine people) and experience relatively lower assessment by TTO managers.

Overall, entrepreneurship plays an important role in both countries’ regional economic development and there is still a need for supporting a growing national innovation ecosystem (Andera and Lukeš, 2016; Dvouletý, 2017; Trzmielak, 2013). In the Polish “Strategy for Responsible Development” it is expected to increase research spending to approximately 3% of GDP and create 1.5 thousand new start-ups by 2023 (Ministry of Infrastructure and Development, 2017). For comparison, in the Czech Republic the share of total R&D and innovation expenditure is projected to 2.0% of GDP in 2020 and 3.0% in 2030 according to “Innovation Strategy of the Czech Republic 2019–2030” (Council for Research, Development and Innovation, 2019). The main obstacles of support of essential knowledge-based entrepreneurial services provided by technology transfer intermediary organisations remain. It is essential that all these entities are given access to everything needed to increase and improve efficiency, because the competitiveness of regions tend to increase based on their capacity for managing and valorising knowledge (Schiuma and Lerro, 2010; Secundo et al., 2017).

4.1 Key characteristics of the commercialisation process in Central and Eastern European economies

To better understand key characteristics of the commercialisation process in CEE economies, we investigated different commercialisation systems (Table 1). Our research suggests that TTOs were most often chosen organisational form to support commercialisation followed by academic entrepreneurship incubators, technology parks and SPVs of the universities. There are also other units involved in the process like government agency, research support office of the Polish Academy of Sciences or the centre of knowledge transfer and innovation as well as commercialisation functioning inside the university’s business incubator. Therefore, we suggest different organisational forms that are crucial to the effectiveness of commercialisation in terms of their transaction outputs or the ability to coordinate licensing and patenting (Markman et al., 2008). In the line of this research, we furthermore observed large discrepancies in the number of R&D results commercialisation processes that a single organisation participated in the last five years. This is clear when comparing the cases of institution 11 with one commercialised process to institution 12 with 1,000. Also, the number of successfully finalised processes varied from 1 (Case 11) to 800 (Case 12). As one respondent admits: “We have been operating just for one year and the profile of our university is rather narrow – social science and humanities. Therefore, there are no inventions that can be licensed or sold.” This demonstrates the advancement in commercialisation by individual entities and their various sizes (e.g. a single TTO versus a technology park) and the lifetime of the institution. The effectiveness of a dedicated organisation appears to be more likely for institutions that commercialise R&D results in technical and engineering disciplines.

Besides various organisational advancement in commercialisation, the differences in the subject of R&D results commercialisation have also emerged from empirical evidence (Table 2). We applied classical categorisations of research introduced in Frascati Manual as “basic research,” “applied research” and “experimental development” commonly used for statistical and evaluative purposes.

The empirical analysis of data presented in Table 2 also reveals that there are several models of the commercialisation process. Direct commercialisation was the most commonly chosen path for research commercialisation with the emphasis on licensing rather than patenting. As a rule, direct commercialisation is to be handled by intermediary entities that reflect entrepreneurship (Hindle and Yencken, 2004). Consistent with Siegel and Wright (2015), this represents a more traditional mode of technology commercialisation and has also been the dominant route for commercialisation in countries with a much longer history of technology transfer like the USA (Lockett et al., 2005). Although, recently increased attention has been devoted to the university-based spin-off creation that characterise indirect commercialisation. Still, in Poland and the Czech Republic this is not a common practice (three cases). Clarysse et al. (2011a) and Urbano and Guerrero (2013) concluded that academics vary in their entrepreneurial attitudes, which is one of the core components in the spin-off formation. Clarke (1998) based on qualitative analysis of Western European universities found out that universities with more entrepreneurial culture tend to establish more spin-off companies, as well as universities with clear strategy for spin-off formation and management (Lockett et al., 2003).

According to Boh et al. (2016), there are two models of university entrepreneurship ecosystems: systematic, with deep traditions of entrepreneurial cultures like MIT or Stanford, and organic based on the entrepreneurial resources provided by coordinated system for technology transfer (Harvard, UC Berkeley) and focusing on basic research rather than applied research. As Table 2 indicates, commercialisation is frequently related to more applied research and experimental development as a result of national public research systems also observed in other countries (Kergroach et al., 2018). Although, in line with Stokes (1997), recognising the importance of use-inspired basic research (noticed in three cases), described as “Pasteur’s Quadrant,” can significantly maximise fundamental research contribution to industry and society (Larsen, 2011). Considering different institutional goals and concomitant organisational conditions, we cannot adopt the same classification.

However, we noticed some similarities with typology of organisational models proposed by Schoen et al. (2014) for Western European universities. Three main types emerge in our practice as follows:

1. the classical TTO that exclusively serves one organisation and is discipline integrated, which means that decisions about technology transfer are taken at the institutional level with the same rules and processes for all the departments (Case 1–6, 8–14 and 20);

2. autonomous TTO which is very similar but with a higher degree of autonomy (Case 7 and 15); and

3. discipline-integrated technology transfer alliance, an external institution that serves several universities and scientific institutions (Case 16–19 and 21).

Still, the decision over what and how to commercialise in terms of academic discoveries is multifaceted as previously stated by other authors (Lee and Stuen, 2016) and observed in our studies. Scientists differ in their academic engagement with business reliant upon their individual characteristics including demographics, career goals, productivity and motivation (Perkmann et al., 2013). As one respondent claims: “There is lack of willingness and determination of scientists, focusing only on obtaining points based on their publication rates and citations instead of conducting useful scientific research suitable for commercialisation.”

Besides, commercialisation is related to institutional framework and legal aspects. In Poland, the Ministry of Science and Higher Education based on the Higher Education Act, art. 86c leaves it up to the higher education institutions (HEI) to develop their own commercialisation systems, specifying who receives the property rights and on what terms. Internal regulations also lay down rules regarding the distribution of profits. To commercialise the research outcomes thorough indirect commercialisation, HEI usually establish SPVs to set up further spin-offs (Szulczewska-Remi, 2016). Just recently (based on the Regulation of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education from February 22, 2019), the evaluation of HEI takes into account the commercialisation of research results and experimental development services. Still, the sale of other experimental R&D services (without funds for the implementation of projects financed by the National Centre for Research and Development and the National Science Centre and the Minister of Science and Higher Education, funds for financing international scientific cooperation) constitute only 1.7% of total HEI operating revenues (Statistics Poland, 2020a). In the Czech Republic, the legislative framework on public funding of research, experimental development and innovations is set out in Act No 130/2002. An extensive amendment of the act is currently under preparation, and it should primarily introduce support for innovations and new instruments other than subsidies to fund research, development and innovation (National Reform Programme of the Czech Republic, 2020).

Given the uncertainty over how valuable a scientific discovery will be chosen, the commercialisation path is subjective to the aspects such as the quality of prior research, differences in infrastructure and institutional environment (Audretch et al., 2014), the effectiveness of commercialisation intermediary organisation within university or the university’s investment in technology transfer resources. Consequently, each scientific institution in CEE countries must take its characteristics into account when organising its technology and knowledge transfer.

Innovations introduced to the market through the entrepreneurial process of research commercialisation are expected to have a great impact on the building of the KBE. For that reason, the creation of innovative start-ups contributes to the economic growth and development (Colombelli, 2016). To achieve this goal, the investments in R&D and innovations are necessary, as well as the strong cooperation between universities and business enterprises, which are particularly insufficient in CEE countries. Poland and Czechia are just starting to establish conditions for enhancing research commercialisation and intellectual property protection. The number of patents is still low, given the number of researchers per thousand population (7.2 in Poland and 7.6 in Czechia) (OECD, 2019). According to the EOP Patent Index (European Patent Office, 2019), in 2019 Poland fielded only 469 (12.2 per million inhabitants) patent applications and 231 were granted, whereas the Czech Republic filed 198 patent applications (18.5 per million inhabitants) and 172 were granted.

According to Correia et al. (2018), Central, Eastern and South-Eastern European countries differ in the innovation investment patterns in comparison to the other European countries owing to the different financing conditions. However, in 2019 gross domestic expenditure on R&D (GERD), the main indicator of R&D activity, increased by 18.1% compared to the previous year. The R&D intensity ratio (GERD to GDP) reached the level of 1.32%, of which higher education expenditure on R&D accounted for 0.47% (Statistics Poland, 2020b). In 2019, total expenditure on R&D in the Czech Republic represented 1.94% of GDP (Czech Statistical Office, 2019). This reflects, on the one hand, that both countries show progress in increasing their R&D intensities, and, on the other hand, the importance of private sector investments in the financing of much of domestic R&D needed to foster research commercialisation.

4.2 Research commercialisation as an entrepreneurial process

In the second part of the study, we adopted the perspective of entrepreneurship as a conduit of knowledge spillover in the research commercialisation process (Audretch and Keilbach, 2007). Knowledge spillovers are generated by universities or incumbent firms through their R&D departments; however, the way of introducing new products or services into the market can manifest in different forms such as university spin-offs or through licensing. For the purpose of knowledge commercialisation, the technology transfer intermediary organisations are established at the universities, although their effectiveness in this process is not fully recognised yet (Carrick, 2014). For a better understanding of the importance of KBE in the whole process, we investigated the entrepreneurial competences of the scientific team members, as well as the complementary role of transfer intermediary organisations in selected CEE countries in two important aspects of entrepreneurship: entrepreneurial opportunity recognition and entrepreneurial activities undertaking. According to Witt and Zellner (2005), the academic knowledge transfer from universities into the commercial applications requires some essential knowledge-based entrepreneurial services such as: business opportunity recognition, creation of the firm conception, resources (tacit or encoded knowledge) gathering and coordination or their integration into the earlier business conception.

The results revealed the important role of scientists (research team) in the process of research commercialisation (Table 3). Usually, research commercialisation processes were based on tacit knowledge, as the subject of commercialisation was closely related to the author (scientist). Moreover, the respondents declared it was not possible to use knowledge and technology without the author’s (scientist’s) participation and involvement, also after commercialisation and implementation of new solution, regardless its form. Only 3 out of 21 respondents in both countries indicated the encoded character of the knowledge transferred, which means the direct participation of the author (scientist) was not necessary, because properly codified knowledge could be reproduced and used by other market participants. Respondents recognised that proposed distinction was difficult to justify.

The research team seemed to have also the most important role in recognising the commercial potential of R&D results, noticing market opportunities or customer value (15 cases out of which 11 indicated in the first place), however, the substantial role of other actors in this aspect of KBE is also firmly marked. Thus, the second and the third position in the ranking should be given to the business partners (12 cases, out of which four indicated in the first place) and intermediary institutions such as a technology transfer centre (ten cases, out of which five indicated in the first place). These results confirm our assumption that entrepreneurial function of opportunity discovery can be to some point shared between different actors in the science commercialisation ecosystem, however, the scientist does remain as the central figure at this stage of an entrepreneurial process, which is related to the market opportunity discovery. What is surprising in this cultural context, our study suggests stronger than expected cooperation with business partners. It is important, because the university-business cooperation can be considered as a barrier or a driving factor for academic entrepreneurship (Davey et al., 2016).

Among the most frequent drivers of a scientist’s decision on research commercialisation, in our study, was research grant reward and patent reward. On the other hand, running one’s business and contributing to the innovativeness of enterprises and the economy seemed not to be the most frequent motivations for starting the whole process. It is consistent with the study of O’Gorman et al. (2008), who found that “scientists take account of traditional academic rewards when considering the payoffs of commercialisation activity.”

When it comes to the new venture creation as the result of research commercialisation, the research team is also the main author of the new organisation’s business concept or model, followed by home university or institute units (Table 4).

To validate the entrepreneurial competences of scientific team engaged in the commercialisation processes, we introduced, based on Morris et al. (2013), the concept of competences, that was easier to evaluate by the representatives of intermediary institutions, rather than the measurement of traditional personality traits known as “Big Five” or “Big Seven.” Moreover, this approach is related to knowledge and skills needed in the entrepreneurial process (e.g. the ability to accumulate resources).

Intermediary institutions’ representatives were asked to evaluate different aspects of entrepreneurship such as: creativity, recognition and evaluation of market opportunities, risk propensity, perseverance, expertise knowledge, team building skills, ability to accumulate financial resources, ability to organise technical facilities, ability of customer needs analysis, cooperation with external partners (networks building) and self-confidence of the members of the scientific team (Morris et al., 2013).

The results suggested that the most important pillars of KBE in the investigated CEE countries were expertise knowledge, creativity and self-confidence. These characteristics should be considered as a good background for the engagement of academics in the research commercialisation process. The studies of Kalar (2020) show that engagement in entrepreneurial activities requires not only entrepreneurial orientation but also self-confidence in their ability to be creative.

The weakest of the entrepreneurial capabilities, with the lowest evaluation from intermediary institutions representatives, were for both countries: analysis of customer needs/market research and risk propensity. Other studies also confirm that risk attitude is an important factor affecting commercialisation as an entrepreneurial process. For example, risk involved in the process was also important factor affecting scientists’ entrepreneurial intentions at Spanish universities (Miranda et al., 2017).

Also, the ability to recognise and evaluate market opportunities was rather at the moderate level or below in both studied CEE countries. So even if the role of research team in entrepreneurial opportunities recognition is significant, such abilities, together with market opportunity evaluation need support from the part of properly qualified staff of internal or external institutions. Additional important competences: team building skills and the ability to accumulate financial resources were evaluated at the moderate level in both countries.

As the response for some deficiencies in academics’ entrepreneurial competences, the role of intermediary institutions in research commercialisation was explored in our study. These organisations see their role mainly in searching for market orders and creating project teams, intellectual property management and evaluating of inventions’ commercialisation potential. Also, business model, development, and expansion consulting, as well as finding a source of financing from investors were quite highly evaluated. The role of intermediary institutions could be defined as the provision of different services and access to resources in the science commercialisation (Clayton et al., 2018), however, some part of those activities, should be considered as strictly related to the entrepreneurial capabilities (Figure 4).