Speaker 1If you want to reposition as a very important actor in the ecosystem, it's not about how many entrepreneurial programs do you have in your universities, it's about how much collaboration you can produce in the benefit of the ecosystem.
Speaker 2Hello and welcome to the Entrepreneurship Podcast series by UIN. I am Balzano Razbaeva, Director of Research and Training at UIN, and I'm your host for today. For this episode, I spoke with Marcelo Tedesco, Founder and Executive Director of Global Ecosystem Dynamics and Director of Research in Economics and Society at the Buenos Aires Institute of Technology, about why entrepreneurial universities should keep knowledge and critical thinking at their core and how entrepreneurship can carry ideas into society. It's my pleasure to welcome you all here today. Universities are under growing pressure to do more than just... educate or produce research, and they are also increasingly expected to drive innovation, strengthen regional ecosystems, tackle societal challenges, and create a meaningful impact. This raises an important question: are we asking universities to do too much, or are we asking them to do the wrong thing, perhaps? So today we're exploring a deceptively simple question, maybe a little bit philosophical, but what should the entrepreneurial university of the future become? And just... as importantly, what should it stop trying to be? And I'm delighted to be joined today by Marcelo Tedesco, the Founder and Executive Director of Global Ecosystem Dynamics and the Director of Research in Economics and Society at the Buenos Aires Institute of Technology. Marcelo's work sits at this very interesting, fascinating intersection of ecosystem research, entrepreneurship support, but also complex network analysis. And he has studied... more than 25 economic ecosystems across 17 countries, examining how these patterns of collaboration can actually shape innovation and long-term economic development. In his contribution to the Future of Universities thought book, Entrepreneurial Edition, Marcelo makes a very compelling argument, which I'm excited to discuss today, that entrepreneurship should not be seen as the end goal of higher education, but as a vehicle for which knowledge, innovation, and problem-solving can be achieved. but as a vehicle for which knowledge, innovation, and problem-solving can be achieved. but as a vehicle for which knowledge, innovation, and problem-solving can be achieved. but as a vehicle for which knowledge, innovation, and problem-solving can be achieved. but as a vehicle for which knowledge, innovation, and problem-solving can be achieved. but as a vehicle for which knowledge, innovation, and problem-solving can be achieved. solving create value for society. Marcelo, thanks so much for joining us. Thank you to you, Hassan.
Speaker 1Thank you so much to the organization for inviting me to here. Wonderful. Marcelo, in your piece,
Speaker 2you say that university was never meant to be, I believe you said it, a factory for employees or entrepreneurs. And that is an interesting and provocative statement, especially at the time when employability, startup creation and commercialization are so central to what university is doing to university strategy more generally. So when you look at the way universities talk about entrepreneurship today, what concerns you the most or what is it that makes you
Speaker 1make that statement in the first place? No, yes. My first concern about the university as a factory of employees, as a factory of entrepreneurs, because there is not a real difference. And you are shaping employees or you are shaping or training entrepreneurs. But the problem is when the university is not the university itself, but the knowledge is subordinating to the market. That is a real problem because we have a lot of history and a lot of bad learning about what happened when the knowledge is subordinating to self-interest. And then the university, the purpose of the university never was to, be a factory, but to be a space of knowledge sharing, to be a space of critical thinking, to be a space of revolution, not subordinating. But it's a problem that we have in the last maybe 60 years. So my concern is that there is a lot of message and hype around how university can produce entrepreneurs. And I think this is not the right path for the future. Not only the university, it's not the path for the future of the society. Yeah, what I find interesting in this
Speaker 2argument is that it's not that you're dismissing entrepreneurship. It's almost like you suggest to reposition it. So how can we talk about entrepreneurship in this context then? Yeah,
Speaker 1it's not repositioning about the purpose of university, it's considering that what is the original purpose of the university. Because if you're training entrepreneurs or employees, you are not a university, you're a technical center. Or a training center, which is really important to have a training center, but they are not universities. I have said in my contribution that entrepreneurs is a medium, not a goal. It's not the end. So that is important. I have not a problem with the fact that the university fosters entrepreneurial culture. That is important. But not, as I say, not as an end, but as a medium to solve problems. Because... That we need is people that have the capacity to solve the most compelling problems in the world right now, and not to pursue the self-interest or to become an entrepreneur or a businessman, a businesswoman, etc. And also following the example of the most important university in the world, like MIT, Stanford, Oxford, I don't know, UCL, LSE, none of these universities has a degree on entrepreneurship. They have an entrepreneurial culture. But not a degree in entrepreneurship. It's a real difference.
Speaker 2Yes. I also feel like they might be masking it with a different language because, for example, in our work, we also often talk about how important it is to adjust your language when you talk about entrepreneurship, because it's not just, as you said, about venture creation. It's about this culture and mindset.
Speaker 1It's about culture, for sure. But the problem, maybe you can talk about all universities in the world, for sure. But observing the trend in Latin America, where we have entrepreneurship degrees, that is the problem for me. I'm not talking about all universities. I am talking about my experience and about Latin America, because there is a very concerned trend of the university to take out very important subjects like philosophy, methodology, epistemology, and replacing with technical classes. That is a problem. Yep. So it's not about the culture. The entrepreneurial culture is really important. The problem, again, is trying to make mandatory the entrepreneurship path in the university.
Speaker 2And maybe to build on that, what you have also argued in your piece was that the strongest universities have not per se become influential because they produce entrepreneurs directly, but because they create the conditions where knowledge, curiosity, research, and experimentation can flourish.
Speaker 1Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2But what does it mean in practice? So maybe we can unpack this a little bit and look at it. What does it actually mean? What does it actually mean in practice? And you can give us a few examples.
Speaker 1Yes. In practice is that this kind of university, they don't have these mandatory classes on entrepreneurship that we have in Latin America and much more every day. So when you have a university or in a space, whatever, where the knowledge is the goal, then the knowledge after you have created a new something, whatever, new innovation, a new discovery, a new technology, you need to carry out that technology, that knowledge, that innovation to society. And you have different ways to do that. You can do that through publishing, you can do that through patents, you can do that to implement innovation in a social context, or you can do that through the market. And that is pretty, it's okay. One of the path to carry the knowledge and innovation knowledge to the society is through the entrepreneurship. So when a student at MIT want to carry that knowledge to the market, then maybe they become an entrepreneur. So in that moment, you need to have the infrastructure to support that venture, but not as a mandatory path, but an optional path for the students. And practically, you know, I talk about this previously of this trend in Latin America to take out critical figures. And I think that's very important. I think in classes from the curricula, I don't know, in all universities of the world, but in MIT, not only entrepreneurship as a degree is not an obligation, it's not mandatory, but what is mandatory is something that is called HASS track, H-I-S-S, which means humanity, arts, and social science. Whatever that you are a student or degree that you are pursuing a degree in physics or chemistry or engineering or business, you are obligated to complete this humanities, arts, and social science track before the second year. There is not entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial subject classes mandatory, but yes, you have philosophy as mandatory, social science as mandatory, arts as mandatory. So because this university, they are pursuing that the student develop critical thinking, not to develop self-interest, I don't know, ventures.
Speaker 2Oh, I couldn't agree more with that argument. In fact, I think what we asked as well here in Europe but I think that's what the thought book also talks a lot about as well is that how important it is the that integration of different disciplines in one and especially the role of social sciences and humanities creating this new generation of creative but also critical thinkers that might have this entrepreneurial mind but then they find their own ways and how they can create value exactly not just for themselves but also for society at large exactly one of the other I thought interesting concepts that you are mentioning in your piece was that university could be positioned as a gravitational center within an economic and societal ecosystem so I think that is a very interesting and powerful image and it also suggests that universities do not just participate in ecosystems they have the ability to shape those movements connections and possibilities around them but what does this mean in your understanding maybe you can elaborate a bit more on that what does it mean to act as a gravitational
Speaker 1center yeah gravitational center is a concept or terminology that we have created to explain how important is an actor in the ecosystem and we we use that terminology in global ecosystem dynamics because in complex network analysis we used algorithm which is a kind of attraction like planets in the space so when you have a lot of collaboration and a lot of connections in the ecosystem you as an actor become bigger so much more bigger much more another connection you can attract but this is important because as many connections you have also the possibility to transfer resources to the rest to the whole ecosystem in an easy way an arbitration center is the capacity to create new connection and to transfer resources to the rest of the ecosystem and to transfer resources to the rest of the ecosystem we have some findings that the most developed ecosystem or the most stronger ecosystem mainly innovation driving ecosystem has the university on the center of the structure of the ecosystem so that kind of ecosystem have the knowledge in the center of the ecosystem and then could transfer in a very easy way to the rest of the ecosystem that kind of ecosystem have the knowledge in the center of the ecosystem and then could transfer in a very easy way to the rest of the ecosystem that kind of ecosystem have the knowledge in the center of the ecosystem and then could transfer in a very easy way to the rest of the ecosystem that in the contrary in latin america in another developing countries on another developing economies we have found that the universities are in periphery of the structure of the ecosystems so there is a problem to transfer knowledge to the other actors in the ecosystems so that is very important from the economy of innovation by economy driving by the innovation has the university in the center of the
Speaker 2structure of the ecosystems and for those universities that feel as you said peripheral to their own ecosystems perhaps disconnected from i can imagine industry or maybe investors
Speaker 1governments not only industry in the ecosystem in general because the ecosystem is the industry is very important please don't misunderstand me but they are not the only actor that they are in an
Speaker 2economic ecosystem so but exactly so other actors as well but how do you think maybe that's something what your research talks about as well what are the first signs that those universities should look out for or maybe how they can
Speaker 1reposition themselves for sure collaboration ecosystem is about collaboration without collaboration you don't have an ecosystem you have an ego system the the world is collaboration because if you want to repositioning as a very important actor in the ecosystem it's not about how many entrepreneurial programs do you have in your university it's about how much collaboration you can produce in the benefit of the ecosystems but in latin america in general we have the problem that not only the university doesn't collaborate with other different actors don't collaborate doesn't collaborate with the other university and that's a problem
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Speaker 2you indeed talk about as well that robust ecosystem structures not a result of let's say an isolation or isolated isolated effort and it's very deep sustained collaboration i know that it sounds simple on the paper but what we also often see is that many universities still approach engagement through perhaps having some isolated initiatives projects ad hoc relationships or just one-on-one bilateral sort of collaboration and ecosystem is a multi-stakeholder sort of undertaking so what does meaningful collaboration look like in your research in your view beyond individual initiatives especially when we talk about universities that are looking to reposition from periphery to becoming this gravitational center so what would you say yeah what how they should approach collaboration and who they should pursue in the effort of becoming more centered
Speaker 1maybe that the motivation to become more important is not the right path because some thing that we have found in our studies is the ecosystem with a lot of collaboration and with a robust structure with an efficient structure the motivation the why are the an actor and an institution start a new collaboration is not to pursue the self-benefit they pursue the ecosystem benefit so first we add value to the ecosystem as a consequence we resist the self-benefit we see reciprocal value i think the the answer to your question is the universities or the any kind of institution but we are talking about university need to pursue the interest of the ecosystems not the interest of the university because if you have a lot of entrepreneurial programs or whatever a lot of training programs to attract new talent to attract new entrepreneurs to attract new innovators you are competing we are in competition with the ecosystem we are not collaborating with the ecosystem so it's a change of perspective you need to it's perfect that you have entrepreneurship entrepreneurial programs you have maybe an incubator or an accelerator as university i've had a lot of very good programs but not to attract talents but to add value to the ecosystem i don't know if i am explaining myself with that very much so i wish i just have
Speaker 2a few follow-up questions of that because i think it's actually a very important distinction so one of the things that we're talking about here is that universities are often rewarded for visibility or some very concrete contributions either to research or also to economy but your argument is that university or maybe even an entrepreneurial university of the future doesn't per se need to be committed to the advancement of its own but the ecosystem as a whole so but what i'm thinking about though and maybe we can explore that together as the next question is how can the institutional ambition because i can imagine that's still part of the game with ecosystem level responsibility and some of those other expectations that perhaps may also be placed on a university as
Speaker 1a institutional machine yes the problem is that when the institution whatever institution in a university or whatever another institution has in their own purpose on the interest the self-interest the purpose of the institution in the social context and then the economic context has to be to support the society what is part of so the problem is not how to change or how to balance the self-interest and the ecosystem interest so this is in a different way this is my own interest has to be the ecosystem interest if you think in the purpose of the very important universities or the most influential university in the world when you think about the social context and the ecosystem interest when you read the vision of the mission in the that institution you usually read to advance the knowledge to solve the very problems of the humanity so my self-interest is to solve the problem of the humanity so you don't need to buy when you have that kind of purpose or you have that kind of mission in your institution you don't need to balance uh the self-interest with the ecosystem interest because it's the same a very interesting
Speaker 2question just being mindful of time i also would like to then focus on those three principles i believe you call them for the entrepreneurial university because i think it builds up nicely on what we have just discussed before in your contribution you describe these principles i think there is one that is focusing on the learning that is rooted in exploration then you also talk about again this transdisciplinarity which is very important as well and then you also talk about how university needs to connect back to the real world and real challenges so if you were advising a university that would want to move say in that direction or how would they operationalize those principles for themselves so how those principles would look in action for them okay uh made for transdisciplinary perspective
Speaker 1that bodies are also the problem in latin america transdisciplinary is not a goal right now in science in general but innovation and advanced knowledge for that when you need a transdisciplinary dialogue between science we need much more collaboration inside of the university much more dialogue inside of the university because we are talking about the university in the in the context of the ecosystem but the university itself are an ecosystem so we have found so the latin american context that the universities has a lack of collaboration inside of universities we need the university with much more collaboration between departments biology department with the social science department i don't know physics department with that it's interesting because we in global ecosystem dynamic we have this exact transdisciplinary vision we have tried to solve a problem from the economy using social science a perfect of social science that we bring from anthropology a tool that has born in physis which is complex network analysis and a theoretical framework which is then biology the the biggest problem that the humanity is facing right now need collaboration inside of the university not only outside with the ecosystem one is that's the one from transdisciplinary the other one was the oh that's it for the second one the first one that that all that thing that we have talking about it which is the back to the root of the purpose of the university universities are not factory from the market we have not to has in our kpis how many employees we produce or how many entrepreneurship that born in the university we need to measure the impact of the knowledge not the quantity of the uh entrepreneurs or the quantity of employees that our university produce so back to the original purpose of the university as a place of revolution as a place where the university don't don't have to deploys employees to the market but build new industries build new way to things that is the the first one and the fifth one was the structure to facilitate yes one we have talking about that also but when you're a student that is pursuing a degree i also talked about this but you are pursuing maybe a degree in chemistry or in physics but if the student want to carry their new idea to their market you as university need
Speaker 2to have prepared to support that so the university of the future or entrepreneurial university of the future is not is not necessarily the one with the most startups or most for structures for entrepreneurship but the one that helps to create more knowledge more capability problem solving so that we can contribute to the betterment of the ecosystem of the society
Speaker 1that maybe i want to finish with that the university of the future is not that one to produce more entrepreneurs or more new venture is that one to create the right culture of an entrepreneurship which is for sure to solve the great problem of the humanity that's a very
Speaker 2strong closing argument marcelo thank you so much for this and thank you for everyone who was able to join us today i think today we heard a lot about what the future holds for an entrepreneurial university but at the same time i also feel like we went back in history to the actual roots of the university which i think often we indeed forget about and what stays with me today is that the university starts with knowledge with curiosity with rigor intellectual freedom we talked about as well i saw there were some questions around the corporates and industry we did say that collaboration is important so it's an ongoing dialogue with all of them and that's the university that understands entrepreneurship not as an ultimate goal but as a pathway towards more impact as you said it's a vehicle vehicle right it's a journey to the impact yeah exactly yeah that was our main message today indeed marcelo thank you so much again thank you maybe i want
Speaker 1to end because there's something i don't know if i am a student and i have to choose between a corporate internship and a building my own venture right i want to say that for me it's very sad that the students go to university to become an entrepreneur so to become a employee that is the message that that we have built in the last six decades and this is very sad if you go to the university go to discover something go to learn more go to for love to the knowledge not to become an entrepreneur or to become an employee so go to develop the kind of tools that you need to support the problem of the world that is there whatever it doesn't care if after the the way or the path is go to corporation to pursue your purpose or you maybe you can start a new company that is also a vehicle to provoke impact in the society not the goal great thanks for noticing this
Speaker 2message i think there are a few more questions to you so yeah it's a lot of questions right now we would be happy to share your details so maybe you can receive those questions directly but it's great to see so much interest from the audience as well so again marcelo thanks so much for joining and if you're all interested in reading about this marcelo has wrote the contribution for the future of university's thought book entrepreneurial edition so make sure to check it out there but marcelo thanks so much we will thank you again goodbye goodbye thank you for listening to today's discussion follow uin on linkedin and if you're enjoying our podcast make sure to subscribe rate and review in your podcast platform of choice to help other people find this content too
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