ZEW Study on Employment Development of Academic Spinoffs

Academic spinoffs are spinoffs from universities and research institutes. They provide the opportunity to directly apply scientific findings in order that the economy may benefit from the results. In addition, many hope that spinoffs will provide new jobs. Academic spinoffs founded by a team have, on average, a 7.5 percent higher employment growth than spinoffs founded by a single entrepreneur.

However, academic spinoffs founded by single entrepreneurs or teams whose members studied different subjects have no higher employment growth than academic spinoffs whose founders studied the same subject. There is only one exception. Academic spinoffs founded by engineers have a higher employment growth if there is one economist among the team members. These are the findings of an empiric study conducted by the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) in Mannheim. The ZEW study analysed 4,658 academic spinoffs founded between 1996 and 2000 in Germany.

"Contrary to the general expectations and theories, interdisciplinarity is not a success factor for academic spinoffs," says Bettina Müller, ZEW researcher. "It is only important that academic spinoffs are founded by a team. The team members’ academic background, however, is irrelevant."

For further information please contact

Dr. Bettina Müller, Phone: +49/621/1235-352, E-mail: bettina.mueller@zew.de