Entrepreneurs in Residence at the nexus of Regional and University Entrepreneurial Ecosystems during the COVID crisis

The Covid 19 pandemic severely impacted many businesses regarding resources, human capital and operations. Entrepreneurial Ecosystems (EE) is a novel perspective from which to analyze these effects, positioning the entrepreneur at the centre of regional economic development. EE also emphasizes the interplay between the support systems and the business (Cho et al. 2021; Spigel and Harrison 2018; Stam 2015; Wurth et al. 2021).

Academic discussion on how higher education could foster regional economic growth and societal change has attracted attention in the entrepreneurship literature (Klofsten et al. 2019; Pickernell et al. 2019). Universities have been playing increasingly important roles in entrepreneurship. They support both wider Regional EEs (REEs) and their own University EEs (UEEs). Within the university, entrepreneurial activity is influenced by infrastructure, including private and public resources, as well as physical and incubation (Clayton et al. 2018; Kolympiris and Klein 2017; Pauwels et al. 2016; Woolley and MacGregor 2021). However, a holistic and systemic approach to understanding how UEEs can best support early-stage entrepreneurs is still under-theorized.

Entrepreneurs in Residence (EiRs) provide potentially important conduits between REEs, UEEs and entrepreneurs. Given that such EiRs are chosen by universities as exemplar entrepreneurs, it will therefore be interesting to explore the degree to which they have had issues and problems derived from the Covid-19 and post-Covid environment because of the consequences this would suggest for other businesses in the region and the effectiveness of the supporting REEs and UEEs during the pandemic. Thus, we aim to answer the following research questions

- What institutional mechanisms have been used to develop and build university-EiR interaction to maintain and enhance resilience within REEs and UEEs during the pandemic?
- Which have been most effective, is this context-specific and if so, what differences in context are most important?


This project is funded by Bal Research Project Fund (2022/23)
Amount:3,000 GBP

The results show interesting differences in EiR programme aims and consequent entrepreneur types in the different institutional contexts. In addition, however, important similarities also existed with regards to how EiRs, UEE and wider regional EE interacted. This then created the equally interesting heterogeneous experiences from the covid-induced crisis.