Academic entrepreneurship and the research productivity in Poland

ABSTRACT

Is it possible to reconcile academic entrepreneurship with the internationalisation of scientists’ productivity? We provide an answer to this question through the statistical analysis of a representative survey of 811 scientists in Poland. Based on Robert K. Merton’s distinction between two types of scholars: local (oriented towards the national science system) and cosmopolitan (aiming at international achievements), we found that research productivity positively influences academic entrepreneurship, but that scientists who are productive locally engage in academic entrepreneurship more often than the cosmopolitan ones. This suggests that the internationalisation of one’s scientific activity, at least in countries transitioning from a local to a cosmopolitan mode of research, is an absorbing endeavour that only the most productive researchers can reconcile with academic entrepreneurship. Such countries should balance their policies regarding the career development of their scientists also to include the promotion of science-business cooperation and not just the internationalisation of research.

KEYWORDS:

• Academic entrepreneurship
• scientific productivity
• science policy in Poland
• science-business cooperation
• local and cosmopolitan scientists

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.

Notes

¹ In the Mertonian definition, the locals are oriented towards their local environment (e.g. region of the country, state, university), whereas the cosmopolitans are characterised as operating nationally and internationally. In the case of Poland, which, unlike the USA, does not set scientific standards for the international scientific communities, it is justified to expand the distinction by characterising the locals as scientists oriented towards the relatively small national science system, and the cosmopolitans as those focused on building a career based on international achievements. A similar approach towards the concept of local scientists was adopted, e.g. by Kwiek (2015a).

² The median values for locality and cosmopolitanism measures are 3.00 and 1.00, respectively.