Narrowing the gap between the business world and the academic world by giving researchers incentives for turning works of science into commercial products may be a strong factor in university internationalization efforts. This is illustrated in the newly published PitchBook Universities Report, which ranks the 10 universities in the world that produce the largest number of entrepreneur candidates. They receive what is known as venture capital, grants that usually come from investors and help with the transition from ideas to profitable realities. All in all, the undergraduate programs of these institutions — led by Stanford University, the University of California, Berkeley and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), all in the United States — produced a group of entrepreneurs who, from 2010 to 2015, created over 3,000 companies that received US$33.5 million.
The report also shows the institutions with the best graduate and MBA programs and highlights the program offered by Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV) in São Paulo. The foundation is among the five institutions of higher learning with the best MBA programs outside Europe and the United States. The document suggests that the path for turning research into a highly successful business venture requires more than good management of business models. There must be an investment in establishing networks that include professors, investors and partners as a way to form a human nexus to generate a flow of resources for innovation.
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