The Warwick way: A case study of entrepreneurship within a university context

Abstract

The University of Warwick perceives itself as an innovative and entrepreneririal organization, and has a reputation as such amongst institutions of higher education within the UK. The Conservative Government of Mrs. Thatcher has since 1979 applied steadily increasing pressure on the British system of higher education for it to be more flexible, responsive and business-minded, with less dependency on public funding. The result has been a turbulent and challenging environment for the quasi-public sector universities, with a premium being placed on their ability to manage change. At the time ofwriting, Warwick appears to have operated successfully within this new climate, both to its benefit and to that of its local industrial district. The airticle examines the factors which facilitate and stimulate innovative and entrepreneurial activity amongst the Warwick academic community - factors which will become increasingly important if the university world .is to adapt with flexibility, responsiveness and imagination to the changing and increasingly demanding economic and governmental climate now prevailing not only in the USA and the UK, but also in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Nigeria.