Criteria and Mechanisms of Academic Entrepreneurship in Higher Agricultural Education from the View of Entrepreneurship Experts

This two-phase research was done to identify and prioritize mechanisms of academic entrepreneurship in agricultural higher education. According to the research purpose, criteria to select key expert participants were identified as: actual experience in academic entrepreneurship, managerial experience in policy making and institutional supporting for academic entrepreneurship, and professional experience as lecturer or researcher in academic entrepreneurship. A total of 24 experts participated in this Delphi technique. By a three-round Delphi study, the first phase was conducted in order to identify alternative mechanisms and criteria of academic entrepreneurship in higher agricultural education. As findings of the first phase, 5 alternatives and 7 criterion were extracted. Using Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP), extracted alternative mechanisms and criteria of academic entrepreneurship were prioritized in the second phase. Required data was collected through pair-wise comparison and Expert Choice software used to analysis data. Finally, five methods of academic entrepreneurship ranked based on the seven criterion as: set up spin-off and start-up firms by agricultural faculty members for commercialization of research and supplying scientific services has the highest rank (relative weight of 0.242). Then set up a university academic cooperative, with relative weight of 0.242, licensing or selling patents, with relative weight of 0.213, contract research, with relative weight 0.182 and providing education and consulting services out of university, with relative weight of 0.099 got the next rank. Each mechanism of academic entrepreneurship has a different impact and specific implication.