What is it about?
The purpose of this article is to show how scientists in Norway acted as entrepreneurs to create organizations for scientific research in Norway from the late 19th century until the early 1950s. Three generations of Norwegian scientists worked towards finding good ways to organize research based on models they had seen abroad. As entrepreneurs they identified future opportunities, assembled resources to pursue those opportunities and sought to legitimize their projects. I highlight three kinds of organizations; the science academy with its private funds; the central research institute; and the research council.
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Why is it important?
My work demonstrates the importance of transfer of knowledge between various generations of academic entrepreneurs. Further, it shows that academic entrepreneurship is an inherently collective endeavor, involving also state representatives and industrialists.
Perspectives
I was fortunate to be invited into a vibrant group of scholars investigating the various ways academic scientists historically have worked as entrepreneurs both outside and inside institutions of higher education and research. My article is part of one of two special issues on academic entrepreneurship in two separate journals that came out of this concerted interest in scientists as entrepreneurs; Management & Organizational History (12:3 2017) and History & Technology (33:1 2017). Please check them out for more research on this topic.
Thomas Brandt
Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Envisioning a national infrastructure for science – academic entrepreneurship in 1890s–1950s Norway, Management & Organizational History, July 2017, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.1080/17449359.2017.1356233.
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