Abstract:

The concept of entrepreneurial universities is becoming more important nowadays in the condition of unstable economic development, uneven regional development and other challenges the World economy faces. It can be explained by the fact that such universities substantially contribute to competitiveness of national innovation systems by encouraging and supporting commercialization of technological developments (CTD). Such institutions became especially important in the context of open innovation, which recently has become a wide-spread practice. Also, entrepreneurial universities take a significant place in the Triple Helix theory and more recent succeeding theories of Fourth Helix and Pentahelix. The object of our research is Saint-Petersburg national research university of informational technology, mechanics and optics (ITMO University) as one of the leading entrepreneurial universities in Russia. The research is aimed to analyze the experience of ITMO university in the commercialization of technological developments, to evaluate its results on the example of educational programs for students and researches in the area of technological entrepreneurship and to identify main challenges and problems which state-science-education cooperation face in Russia. The following results have been obtained. Firstly, authors performed synthesis of theoretical base regarding CTD and theories related to Triple Helix. Development of the theory of Triple Helix was divided into conceptual stage, contextualism, and regionalism. Secondly, the analysis of ITMO university experience in a context of CTD-related educational programs showed that the educational programs focused on technological entrepreneurship and which encourages CTD through creation of new startups, performing of commercial R&D and licensing. Nevertheless, the research showed that these instruments do not reach their full potential due to such systemic problems of Russian economy as general lack of specialists in technological entrepreneurship and lack of sites to share experience as well as undeveloped market for property rights.