INSITE receives grant for research into entrepreneurship

The Center for World Affairs and the Global Economy (WAGE) at the University of Wisconsin–Madison has awarded a three-year, $125,000 collaborative research grant to the Initiative for Studies in Technology Entrepreneurship (INSITE).

INSITE is a cross-campus program to enhance understanding of technology entrepreneurship. The grant will support research that probes deeper into some key features of successful technology entrepreneurship.

INSITE’s new research efforts—international in scope–will include non-commercial motivations for sharing inventions, flexibility as a condition for flourishing technology entrepreneurship and the unanticipated outcomes of efforts to promote technology entrepreneurship.

“Experience indicates there is likely no single recipe of policies and institutional features that will work equally well across the globe to advance technology entrepreneurship,” said School of Business Professor Anne Miner. Miner is INSITE director and Ford Motor Company Distinguished Professor of Management and Human Resources. “We are grateful for the opportunity to probe deeper into the processes that shape technology entrepreneurship.” INSITE has been examining the conditions that foster the development of high-technology businesses in communities around the world, as well as exploring their impact on other institutions.

As an example of the scope of their research, INSITE researchers recently shared some early findings at the Technology Transfer Society national conference in Kansas City. Venture capitalists and university officials expressed interest in the work presented. UW researchers presented on a range of issues, from the effects of venture funding on companies to the motivations behind university scientists’ commercialization efforts. Other research examined the dynamics in open-source software and emerging technologies, like stem cells. INSITE plans to share researchers’ work through a series of upcoming events.

The WAGE grant is managed by Miner and Brad Barham, chair of the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics in the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences. Also on the core research team are School of Business school faculty members Gerry George, Jonathan Eckhardt, Sanjay Jain, Masako Ueda, Law School Professor Gordon Smith and Assistant Professor Jeremy Foltz from the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences.

Supporting this effort is the new Director of INSITE, John Surdyk, who is responsible for facilitating strategic planning, program administration and research support. Surdyk, a Wisconsin MBA, management consultant and natural scientist, has advised high-technology start-up companies, Fortune 500 firms and entrepreneurial nonprofits in the San Francisco Bay area and Wisconsin.

Headed by Professor Jonathon Zeitlin, Professor of Sociology and Political Science, UW–Madison’s WAGE program fosters study in globalization and international economic integration.