University Ecosystem for Student Startups : A ‘Platform of Trust’ Perspective

Abstract

In many universities, a continuum and a variety of startup pre-accelerators, startup accelerators; entrepreneurs, investors, and other support actors, are in place to facilitate entrepreneurship and that student startups emerge. In this paper, we describe how the entrepreneurial ecosystem in and Aalto University works. We describe how Aalto’s students explore and develop ideas that exhibit “radical creativity”; how faculty and staff at Aalto nurture a “platform of trust” whereby such ideas are not only allowed but also expected; and how “outside entrepreneurs and investors” from the outside come in to work with the best ideas and startups thus developed. The paper proposes implications for policy and management practice in terms of possible import of this model into entrepreneurial ecosystems in and around other universities and other kinds of contexts, and makes a call for further research.