Communication in University Spin-Offs: An Exploratory Study in Biotechnology-Based Companies

• Autor(a) principal: Frota, Rute de Alencar
• Data de Publicação: 2018
• Outros Autores: de Freitas, Ana Augusta Ferreira
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Revista de Empreendedorismo e Gestão de Pequenas Empresas - REGEPE
• Texto Completo: https://www.regepe.org.br/regepe/article/view/700
• topic: University Spin-offs; Science Communication; Biotechnology; Spin-offs acadêmicas; Comunicação da ciência; Biotecnologia.

The transference of technology from the universities to the market has been drawing the attention of theorists and governors. One of the mechanisms which is able to make this transference possible consists of the university spin-off (USO). In this context, the communication of science is important to disseminate researches that might give way to this type of company, being an area which gets little attention from the literature. In face of this problem, the objective of this study is to find how biotechnology-based USOs communicate with their public during its life cycle, which starts from the scientific research, originating the company, until the phase in which they currently are. In order to accomplish the goal, three spin-offs of biotechnological basis were researched, incubated or graduated by incubators of companies related to public universities. The results show that the academic entrepreneurs comprehend the importance of communication and they believe it can have many purposes. Despite this, only a spin-off includes communication in its strategic planning. From this fact, others derive, like: there are no propositions of journalistic scripts and the journalists end up being only transitory. Even so, the media coverage about these companies happens and it is positive. Despite not being strategic, communication occurs since the creation of the companies and they communicate in several ways: they give visibility to their findings on the websites and also through primary communication. Besides, the companies communicate with their customers mainly through the Internet.