A Model for Supporting University Spin-offs, Using a Venture Capital Mechanism: the Case of the University of Science & Technology of Iran

The role of entrepreneurial universities is not only knowledge production, but also to make an essential contribution to economic and social development. So, nowadays, universities should focus on commercialization and play a more active role in transferring new technologies to industry, so that they can create more value for the society. During the last decade, there has been a significant expectation on universities to provide the infrastructures needed by university spin-offs. One of the most important of these infrastructures is venture capital. Since financial problems are one of the biggest obstacles faced by spin-offs, venture capital is an important tool for help them overcome this problem. This tool provides managerial advice in addition to financial support. Universities establishing their own venture capital funds can bridge the spin-offs financial gap. The main question of this research is “What factors, precautions and concerns should be considered by the University of Science and Technology of Iran, using venture capital as a tool for supporting spin-offs This question can have several answers, which can be viewed as different scenarios or solutions. In this research morphological analysis is used to provid these solutions to be presented to decision makers. As the first step in morphological analysis, the main question ought to be broken down into different dimensions and components, which is done on the basis of step-by-step decision making model, and sub-questions have extracted from the model; each sub-question is then answered though face-to-face interviews and studying related rules and regulations. Possible choices have provided for each sub-question. There are as many possible scenarios as there are many combinations of choices, however not all of these combinations provide desirable and possible scenarios. So, using the field anomaly relaxation method, inconsistent choices are recognized and configurations involving these inconsistencies are rejected. The remaining configurations provide five scenarios as the result of this research. Keywords: Venture capital, Entrepreneurial university, Scenario building, Morphological analysis, FAR method, Spin-off