Introduction
Management research can be carried out in part individually, but increasingly it takes the form of collective projects. Here, projects that are underway or in the development phase are described, so that interested individuals and institutions can join in.
Internal resources
The main projects that I carried out in the past are quickly presented in the page on key elements of my experience as researcher.
Current projects
For the time being, this section is limited to a project that I initiated and that has aroused the interest of several colleagues: the Observatory of Local Innovative Companies (OEIL), which is currently co-directed with Didier Lebert. But other collective projects are under way, notably in the field of health.
The 'observatoire des entreprises innovantes locales' (OEIL)
Raisons d'être of the project
The project is based on a series of converging observations:
- There is a real momentum around student entrepreneurship, both because of the PEEPS and PEIPS initiatives, and because of the programmes set up in many Paris-Saclay institutions, but given the resources deployed for these initiatives, it will be necessary to quantify the results and demonstrate the added value of these programmes, which implies going beyond a simple count of companies created;
- There is monitoring of the projects carried out with the support of the institutions’s entrepreneurship programmes, but:
- Today, a large number of post-study business creation projects are never identified (or are identified by chance, but what proportion?);
- Even for projects monitored at start-up, what links are maintained after 3 to 5 years?
- This impetus involves a number of scholars often working on entrepreneurship and/or innovation issues, but:
- PEIPS' activities remain relatively isolated from the research activities of the latter;
- The scholars involved in PEIPS constitute only a small part of the researchers working directly or indirectly on this theme.
The raison d’être of the project is to remedy these shortcomings by systematising as much as possible the follow-up of the companies created within the framework of the Université Paris-Saclay, the IP Paris and the institutional partners of the project and by connecting this follow-up to the research activities of the participants.
Aims of the project
The observatory's mission is to monitor startups in the Paris-Saclay region, particularly those that have emerged from teaching and research institutions.
It is acknowledged that the focus of this observatory is on innovative companies, but that the definition of innovation must not be restricted to the technological dimension.
This monitoring will aim to:
- To produce quantitative reports on the creation and development of startups from the Paris-Saclay ecosystem;
- To carry out longitudinal case studies that can be used both as pedagogical tools, as communication tools...
- And, in fine, to contribute to the corpus of academic knowledge on entrepreneurship and innovation management.
The team will therefore have to keep in mind that the outcome of its activities will have three dimensions simultaneously: evaluation of actions, communication and research. Even if this will lead to different requirements and to publications in different formats, these three dimensions are very complementary. It will thus be possible to combine them, for example by studying the relationship between training and research on this topic (thus providing a basis for evaluating our training methods).
