RENT

Scholars as well as practitioners generally appreciate the importance of innovation to enhance the economic performance and likelihood of survival of small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) Numerous assessments of the association between innovation and firm performance reveal that a high degree of innovation has positive implications for firm financial performance as well as growth. Entrepreneurship and innovation are key factors that trigger global economic development. This is due to their ability to play an important stakeholder role in facilitating networks and contributing to overall economic growth rates. It is important to encourage cooperation and networking in order to stimulate regional and global competitiveness. This includes taking into account regional stakeholders such as academia, industry and government, which together determine the importance of cooperative networks in facilitating regional and global competitiveness.

Universities, other public research organisations as well as R&D centres continuously develop new knowledge and technologies. Technology and knowledge transfer have taken a prominent place and led to the creation of new ventures (spin-offs and spin-outs) or new forms of cooperation between different organisations (licensing, transfer of IP etc.). Prior research identified some challenges and opportunities in university-to-industry knowledge transfer as basis for entrepreneurship. Risk assessment did evolve significantly since a few decades now. Thanks to widespread computing power Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA) came into reach of different disciplines. Also innovation and entrepreneurship can benefit a lot from PRA, by constituting a unique reference framework for assessing risk, mitigating risks and finally knowing what the left-over risks are of the innovation dossiers leading to an increase of the survival chances of new ventures.