university–enterprise cooperation

In the future, other structures can be added,
such as restaurants, a technical museum
targeted at practical introduction of high
school students into R&D, legal advisory,
etc. The Science & Technology Park is a rather
broad concept used to describe various attempts
at stimulating development entrepreneurial,
knowledge-based small and mediumsized
enterprises (SMEs) within a country.
Although there are several definitions of
STPs, the fact is that they represent an
agglomeration of SMEs, which have the
following characteristics:
• They are linked to education and research
institutions;
• They offer infrastructure and services
for the activities of the hosted SMEs,
primarily real estate and business space;
• They facilitate the process of technology
transfer; and
• They are intended to stimulate the industrial
development of the region where they are
located.
The basic aims of the STPs will be to provide
a favorable environments and infrastructure
and to support the creation and growth of new
enterprises which commercialize innovations
from universities or research institutes.
The activity of STPs includes offering an
entire set of services to tenant companies, in
order to help them survive on the research and
development market. The motives for founding
STPs in WBCs are industrialization, regional
development and the creation of synergy. The
goal of these Parks is to stimulate economic
growth in the region by:
• Creating an atmosphere suitable to the
development of innovative activity;
• Support of entrepreneurship in the
scientific-technological sphere;
• Forming of an infrastructure which
stimulates the creation and development
of small innovative companies;
• Technology transfer;
• Commercialization of the results of
scientific and technological research;
• The employment of the best students
who finish their courses of studies.
In WB region S&T Parks will be also used
to attract foreign investment for creating
jobs in the domain of high technology 1 and
increasing the governmental budget. One of
the important goals is also to prevent braindrain
phenomena which have been specific
for WBCs in previous period.
These STPs should be funded partly by
Ministries of Sciences and Technological
Development (or equivalent) and partly
through rents earned from their tenant
companies. Private investors and venture
capital funds can also invest resources in
order to make a profit later on. Obtaining
these resources for companies will be one of
the most important functions of the park’s
management. Within the Parks should be
developed and promoted the entrepreneurial
spirit among science students and staff, and
to encourage them to set up small hightechnology
companies. The STPs will provide
tenants with professional educational
courses, organize participation of tenant
companies in international trade fairs and
will provide consultations on development
strategies, financing, participation in markets
and placement of products.
6.3.1.1 Technology Transfer Center
Technology transfer is defined as a transfer
of knowledge, scientific or technical knowhow,
technology, technology-based ideas or
research results, developed within an academic
institution, from academic institution to industry,
where an academic institution may or may not
have the property rights for commercialization
of such scientific or technical know-how,
technology or research results.
Politicians in European Union also recognized
the importance of technology transfer from
academia and establishment of spin-offs,
therefore European Union funds projects
such as PROTON (pan-European network of
Technology Transfer Offices and companies
affiliated to universities and other Public
Research Organizations), PRIME (Policies for
Research and Innovation in the Move towards
1 There are some initiatives in the ICT area, such as
the upcoming Technology Park at Indjija - located 30 km
south of Novi Sad, Serbia
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New WBC model of university-enterprise cooperation 6