Establishing university technoparks as environment for student start-ups: Need analysis

Higher education is the main source of providing managerial and scientific personnel for modern business. However, today it can no longer be just a source of human potential as modern business is developing so dynamically that the effectiveness of the methods taught is decreasing exponentially. Modern employers claim upon hiring fresh University graduates they have to retrain them by teaching recent business methods and building necessary competences. A popular solution to fill in the gap lies in integration of business and higher education by developing co-authored courses based on the requirements of a particular business. This approach, however, gets students stay within one particular enterprise. The practice of establishing University technoparks seems more reasonable in this respect as the implementation of this concept can allow generating students’ innovative ideas and establish small startup enterprises on their basis. On the one hand, it will provide background for delivering individual learning tracks in small student groups, on the other hand, it will allow for teaching staff’s continuous skills development by involving them into various startup projects. This approach also contributes to the increase in an educational establishment’s efficiency by boosting commercialization of student project solutions. The paper proposes a three-stage model of a University technopark by referring to the project currently developed and prepared for implementation at Moscow State University of Food Production (hereinafter referred to as MSUFP). The given model involves the creation of an effective structure, the elements of which are capable of independently maintaining their economic efficiency. The article provides two flowcharts designed by the authors which demonstrate the expected organizational patterns of university technoparks and two tables introducing qualitative and quantitative criteria for efficiency estimation of the University technopark performance regarding generation and promotion of students’ startup projects. © 2021 Copyright held by the owner/author(s).