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Entrepreneurial universities have become a key concept in debates concerning regional economic development. Yet, we still fall short of having a clear comprehension of the enablers of such localized impacts arising from academic activity. Such conditions are particularly critical for the context of developing countries, which have mostly mimicked initiatives taking place in the context of developed markets. To address these issues, we analyze the impacts generated by research-intensive universities on local innovation ecosystems. We apply a combination of econometric and case study methods for the state of São Paulo, Brazil. Results suggest that research-intensive universities, mostly public universities, positively impact their respective innovation ecosystems. Moreover, qualified research funds and the existence of a support structure (incubators and science and technology parks) significantly enhance the impacts generated by research-intensive universities. These findings highlight the relationship between the internal constraints of universities and their capacity to generate impacts on local ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For a while, universities have been perceived by academics and policymakers as potential engines of regional economic development. One specific field of analysis in this regard involves the role of academia in shaping regional attractiveness for knowledge-intensive investments. Nonetheless, there are scant approaches dealing with these issues in developing countries. The goal of this article is to address the attraction effects exerted by high-quality universities on the location of investments in knowledge-intensive activities at the level of cities and microregions, drawing from the case of the state of São Paulo, Brazil. Two-stage Heckman models are applied. Findings suggest weak effects associated with top-tier universities in defining whether a given location receives productive investments or not, but these gravitational impacts are absent in the definition of investment levels. These results indicate weak connections between academic research and agglomeration trends around specific locations in Brazil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]