Developing entrepreneurship skills in scientific academia: best practices from India and Japan

Purpose This paper aims to identify such “entrepreneurial skills” that the scientific community can develop within themselves through training and practice to improve their academic research translation capabilities and performance. Design/methodology/approach From a qualitative perspective, this study currently presents a few findings from some of the best government-funded laboratories in India and Japan, where they are training their young researchers to be world-class scientists as well as entrepreneurs to help them commercialize their scientific research findings from lab to market for societal benefit. Findings This paper intends to focus on identifying some of the “best practices” in developing such capabilities that allow “entrepreneurial scientists” to take their science to the society through entrepreneurship. This paper presents two exemplary case studies about institutions that are trying to build innovation and entrepreneurship capabilities in their research groups through continuous training and practice in the fields of biotechnology (India) and autonomous transportation (Japan). Originality/value Policymakers and top management teams at academic institutions can learn from the “best practices” on envisioning, evaluation and execution skills for designing their innovation and entrepreneurship skill-building programs for their scientific community.