Page 6 - IDEA Studie 15 2016 Podnikani akademiku

theemployer declares intention to use the invention, its ownership rights are acquired by the organization. If, however, the employer does not do that, the academic becomes the sole owner of the invention. One way to commercialize research outputs is to establish an academic spin-off enterprise. Academic entrepreneurship, however, must adhere to the rules of state aid in the common market. Academic organization must behave as a private investor and must not discriminate in favour of the academic enterprise.
 Academic entrepreneurship thrives in natural and technical sciences. Companies like Delong Instruments, Flowmon Networks, CertiCon, Cognitive Security, Eyedea Recognition, Enantis, AB Pharma, Bioinova and Omega3kapr are theprime examples. South Moravian Innovation Centre promoted academic enterprises in internet security and biotechnologies. Academia was instrumental in kick-starting the electron microscope industry in Brno. Academics from theCzech Technical University in Prague turn out to be particularly successful entrepreneurs in software development and artificial intelligence.
 Academic entrepreneurial activities give rise to conflicts of interest between academics and academic organizations. In the recent years there have been allegations of socialization of costs and privatization of profits in knowledge transfer, leaking of academic research outputs to enterprises, suspicious contractual arrangements, losses of income for research organizations and even breach of the state aid rules. Academic entrepreneurship suffers from a lack of clear rules and code of conduct, which needs to be tackled but without excessively complicating the underlying procedures.
 Fresh evidence based on analysis of a major public university indicates that academic entrepreneurship is surprisingly frequent. According to records in thebusiness register, about 16% of academics that acquired docent or professor titles at this university between 2003 and 2015 are doing business in a technology company. It is far above entrepreneurship rates in a general population. Only a single true academic spin-off with an ownership share of the mother academic organization has been detected. The firms predominantly provide professional, technical and informational services. Most of them are very small with at best a handful of employees. Academic start-ups are rare. For most academics business activities seem to be only a source of additional income.
 Academic enterprises primarily play the role of specialized service suppliers, which is beneficial for functioning of innovation systems. Nevertheless, their direct contribution to economic growth remains far below its potential. Rigid labour market for academics, outdated human resource practices in academia, excessively complicated procedures for starting true academic spin-offs and unsatisfactory functioning of technology transfer offices are identified as the main obstacles for growth of academic enterprises. General regulation and codes of conduct that apply to academic entrepreneurship should start to get strictly enforced. National strategy of knowledge transfer that clarifies the framework conditions is much needed. Sufficient positive and negative incentives to abide by the rules need to put in place.
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