Universities are increasingly expected to act as entrepreneurial institutions that create value beyond teaching and research through entrepreneurship education, knowledge exchange, technology transfer, academic spin-offs, and wider ecosystem engagement. However, the mechanisms through which these activities generate economic and societal value remain insufficiently understood, particularly across the full pathway from capability formation to third-mission and regional impact. Existing research often examines entrepreneurship education, academic entrepreneurship, university-industry-society collaboration, and ecosystem development in relative isolation, while practice still relies heavily on narrow indicators such as patents, licences, spin-off counts, or commercialisation income.

This Special Issue addresses that gap by positioning intellectual capital (IC) as the integrative lens through which the entrepreneurial university can be better understood. In particular, it invites contributions examining how human, structural, and relational capital are created, mobilised, measured, governed, and secured across the entrepreneurial university value chain. The editors are interested in work that connects IC with academic entrepreneurship research and entrepreneurship practice, including opportunity recognition, venture development and scaling, technology transfer office routines, incubator and accelerator support, entrepreneurial pedagogy, and ecosystem orchestration.

Contributions are welcomed from scholars in intellectual capital, entrepreneurship, innovation management, higher education, public policy, regional development, and related fields. The editors particularly encourage submissions that speak to practice and policy, and that show how IC can improve the design, governance, evaluation, and impact of entrepreneurial universities.

Theoretically ambitious and methodologically plural submissions are particularly welcome, including comparative, multi-level, longitudinal, mixed-method, network-analytic, text/data-analytic, design-oriented, and field-evaluative studies. Practice-informed submissions are also encouraged, especially where they engage with entrepreneurship educators, TTOs, incubators, ecosystem intermediaries, or policy actors.

Potential topics

• Entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial mindset development as intellectual capital formation
• Curriculum design, educator roles, and innovative approaches in entrepreneurship education
• Digital and AI-enabled entrepreneurship education as structural capital
• Academic entrepreneurship and the micro-foundations of entrepreneurial intellectual capital
• Technology transfer offices as intellectual capital management mechanisms
• Intellectual capital, spin-offs, and venture creation in university context
• University-industry-society collaboration and IC-mediated innovation performance
• Incubators, accelerators, science parks, and entrepreneurial support infrastructures
• Entrepreneurial ecosystems around universities and ecosystem-level intellectual capital
• Third-mission impact measurement, reporting, and evaluation through IC frameworks
• Practitioner metrics, policy frameworks, and the measurement of knowledge exchange
• Securing intellectual capital in entrepreneurial universities, including IP governance, data governance, cyber risk, and knowledge leakage
• International and comparative studies of entrepreneurial university models
• Multi-level, longitudinal, mixed-method, and engaged research designs in IC and entrepreneurship

Timeline

• June 1, 2026: Opening date for manuscript submissions
• December 31, 2026: Closing date for manuscript submissions