Skip to main content

The Day Job



Next week, I celebrate my first year as Director of Research and Innovation at the University of Wales.

Most of my time has been spent in establishing this new area within the university, including the creation of the Global Academy and the successful implementation of the £11.4 million Prince of Wales Innovation Scholarships project. The last few weeks have involved the writing of a business plan for another major programme of innovation (completed last week) as well as a new research centre.

However, the job has also given me impetus to get back to writing research papers in the field of entrepreneurship and innovation with colleagues from the UK and the rest of Europe.

Those not involved in academic life might not appreciate this but such output is the currency of an academic career and I have, admittedly, let it slip over the last couple of years.

Still, I am more than pleased that, so far this year, five have been published/accepted for publication (including two in the top journal, Regional Studies) and we are working on another eight papers to be submitted during the next six months.

The papers published are as follows:

  • "Transferring good practice beyond organisational borders: lessons from transferring an entrepreneurship programme" M. Klofsten, P. Heydebreck and D. Jones-Evans, Regional Studies (forthcoming), 2009

  • "Entrepreneurship amongst minority language speakers - the case of Wales", Dylan Jones-Evans, Piers Thompson and Caleb Kwong, Regional Studies (forthcoming), (2009)

Comments

Anonymous said…
this is not personal as it's your world but that just reminded me why academic papers send me to sleep - give me the abstract any day. The abstract for "The Spatial..." seems ok, may scan read the paper one day.. but academic papers seem to have lost the plot

Certainly Papers are not reading for the masses - more like academic snobbery and self congratulating gibberish these days, they say nothing of real value all too often. So the good stuff gets lost

perhaps it's more the result of the fact you're all now awarded, rewarded and scored on publications that any true interest and ambition and dare i say it "entrepreneurial spirit" is seemingly ever deteriorating in your ranks - when academia allowed free thinking many papers were hugely valuable and even interesting; now it seems you all write papers just to be published and not to make a difference or tell a new tale

yours, humble Mr Logical

Popular posts from this blog

THE IMPORTANCE OF FRANCHISING

When we talk about start-ups and entrepreneurship, rarely do we discuss the potential of franchising not only as a way of establishing new ventures in the economy but also as a method of growing existing businesses. According to the British Franchising Association, franchising is the granting of a licence by one person (the franchisor) to another (the franchisee), which entitles the franchisee to own and operate their own business under the brand, systems and proven business model of the franchisor. The franchisee also receives initial training and ongoing support, comprising all the elements necessary to establish a previously untrained person in the business. This enables individuals to start their own businesses without having to develop their own ideas and utilising an existing brand and established market. Of course, whilst each franchise business is owned and operated by the franchisee, the franchisor controls the quality and standards of the way in which the business is

THE MANUFACTURING STRATEGY FOR WALES

Last night, I received the following comment on the previous post relating to a piece I had written back in early 2007 about the state of the manufacturing sector in Wales. "Dylan, you seem to be ignoring the fact that manufacturers in Wales have written the manufacturing strategy. Small and large manufacturers, all represented at the Manufacturing forum, have co-written this strategy. WAG has recently supported this strategy and have funded a co-ordinator with resources. Manufactures are happy with this progress as they are following the strategy they wanted. I know that the Conservatives have attacked the strategy as they seem to think that WAG wrote the strategy. They couldn't be more wrong. The Manufacturing Strategy was written by manufacturers, for manufacturers and is supported by WAG. If you don't agree with this, then I can invite you to the next Manufacturing Forum and you can explain to the manufacturers how their strategy is wrong....I appreciate that there is

THE PERFECT STORM FACING THE UK ECONOMY

In his sublime 1997 book on the fate of the fishing boat Andrea Gale, the author Sebastian Junger defined a “perfect storm” as a rare combination of events or circumstances that results in an unusually bad situation.  This term would not be out of place in describing what is currently happening to the UK economy which is being battered on so many fronts with little respite in sight. For example, the war in Ukraine has had an unexpected impact on energy bills in Europe due to the curtailing of exports from Russia which, last year, was responsible for supplying 40% of all natural gas to the European Union. Whilst the UK is not dependent on Russia for its energy needs, the scramble by other countries to find alternative sources has resulted in higher prices globally which has impacted on the fuel imported by the UK with normal suppliers struggling to meet demand. There have also been considerable supply constraints globally which have been driven by manufacturers struggling to get their g