Academic Entrepreneurship of Technological Universities and Sustainable Development in Nigeria

Universities are recognised as important sources of knowledge for critical innovative performance of industries through commercialisation of their Research and Development (R&D) outputs otherwise called Academic entrepreneurship. This paper examines the approaches and extent of Academic entrepreneurship of the Federal Universities of Technology in pursuit of sustainable development in Nigeria. The study adopted survey technique with population of all the lecturers in the Universities. A sample size of 528 researchers/lecturers were drawn from the rank of Senior Lecturer to Professor in 16 relevant Departments of the Federal Universities of Technology, Akure (FUTA), Owerri (FUTO) and Minna (FUTM) with a response rate of 67.07%. Descriptive statistics such as percentage and mean; and regression analysis as inferential statistics were employed for data analysis. The result of analysis revealed that a multiple of R&D outputs generated by the reseachers are academic publications (100.0%), copyrights (12.2%), industrial designs (11.40%), patents registered in Nigeria (4.60%), patents registered outside Nigeria (1.6%). Only 20.95% of the researchers claimed to have commercialised their R&D outputs through outright sales of R&D outputs (76.67%), sales of patents (18.33%); and joint venture with industries (8.33%). The regression analysis of data revealed that the academic entrepreneurial and innovative performance of the researchers were influenced by access to research fund (β=36.49, p ≤ 0.01), R&D and innovation incentives (β = 36.67, p ≤ 0.05), government policy implementations (β = 36.67, p ≤ 0.05), infrastructure and research facilities (β = 36.67, p ≤ 0.05), business technical support services (β = 36.67, p ≤ 0.01), industrial patronages (β = 36.67, p ≤ 0.05), industrial partnerships and collaborations (β = 36.67, p ≤ 0.05) entrepreneurial drive of the researchers (β = 36.67, p ≤ 0.05), field of research (β = 36.67, p ≤ 0.05); and business advisory services (β = 36.67, p ≤ 0.05). All the variables contributed 29.74% (R2 = 0.2974) to the academic entrepreneurial and innovative behaviours of the researchers. The study also showed that the contributions of the academic entrepreneurship to sustainable development are improved product/process quality (67.32%), utilisation of local raw material (61.97%), eco-innovation (60.73%), product diversification (54.81%), research-industry partnership (49.05%), increased production capacity (47.22%); and generation of new employment (44.18%). The paper concluded that, there is a marginal improvement in the academic entrepreneurship for sustainable development in Nigeria. However, the need for policy intervention to encourage greater and adequate R&D funding support by government and private organisations is required.