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Best University Practices and Tools in Entrepreneurship

Abstract:

Universities are currently experiencing significant changes in their mission, which have gone from carrying out traditional activities (like teaching and research) to promoting creative, innovative and enterprising capability that enables them to generate economic and social value through the transfer of knowledge. With this activity we are not trying to place universities in high positions in the top national and global rankings of research, or obtain a high level of scientific productivity, but what we are trying to do is use what is generated by universities in a way that is useful for the productive fabric. Therefore, universities have the responsibility of promoting economic and social development through the generation of knowledge, which is applicable to the production process, being susceptible of commercialization and exploitation by companies and institutions. All this will enable universities to play a strategic role as a competitive advantage to improve knowledge. One of the actions that can be put into practice is the promotion of entrepreneurship. The methodology applied, based on case studies, will allow us to know the development of entrepreneurship activities of a University. This analysis will allow us to find out the most appropriate tools to improve entrepreneurship from the University classroom. Among other initiatives, the results of business incubators, spin-offs, Chairs of entrepreneurship, advice to entrepreneurs and the role of business angels will be assessed. The approach of this article will allow analysis and reflection, both from a theoretical and practical perspective of best practices and tools of entrepreneurship. The transfer of knowledge is the third pillar upon which the activity of universities should be held. Taking into account the experiences of other countries that have decidedly supported the transfer of knowledge, especially the United States and United Kingdom, it can be confirmed that the universities with the greatest future projection are those which consider that the third mission should be more and more present. This article aims at defining the actions that are being carried out in Universities and their potential benefits to entrepreneurship. The implications of this article are of interest, both from a theoretical and practical perspective, since the results are widely used in the university entrepreneurship reality. The results will help determine the best practices and tools and to what extent they will be used in institutions of higher education. In addition, this article is to point out the role of universities in the field of entrepreneurship, to determine which different instruments can be used and which good practices and tools should be performed.