An alternative entrepreneurial university?

In this chapter, we discuss the entrepreneurial university as a part of the entrepreneurialisation of society. To investigate how this affects the University we take inspiration from Mazzucato´s discussion about the entrepreneurial state. Based on a rich empirical case where entrepreneurship has been introduced in a different way than described in extant literature (and policy), two conceptualisations of the entrepreneurial university are elaborated on. In “The Entrepreneurial University” (TEU) focus is set on how existing technology can be used in a new context or turned into innovations. In contrast, in the “Alternative Entrepreneurial University” (AEU) processes and practices are introduced to facilitate reflexivity with regards to the role of entrepreneurship in late capitalism. It is proposed that, rather than choosing one of these two ‘idea(l)s’, it may be beneficial to find ways to unite the two approaches, finding ways to create stability for knowledge production that can feed into both new technologies and novel ways of organizing society for the betterment of its constituents. Further it is suggested that the two conceptualisations can help to advance research approaches on the entrepreneurialisation of universities in order to learn how this sets and shifts boundaries for democracy and our understanding of knowledge production.