This study began with the fact that policy efforts are being made to support student start-ups by creating a university start-up ecosystem. The purpose of this study is to clarify the construction process of Seoul National University's start-up ecosys...
This study began with the fact that policy efforts are being made to support student start-ups by creating a university start-up ecosystem. The purpose of this study is to clarify the construction process of Seoul National University's start-up ecosystem and the direction of establishing a university start-up ecosystem that promotes student start-up by analyzing the interaction between ecosystem components that support the expression of student entrepreneurship. To this end, the research method conducted literature research, participation observation, and in-depth interviews with 17 student entrepreneurs and related parties at Seoul National University. The summary of the research results is as follows.
First, the creation of the Korean start-up ecosystem was established in 1997 with an institutional support system for fostering venture companies and began with the first venture boom, and was launched in earnest by the second venture boom by the mobile SNS platform market in 2010. Since 2017, the government has been leading the establishment of a start-up ecosystem through the expansion and reorganization of start-up support policies and revitalization of the venture investment market. Accordingly, the university start-up support policy focuses on material aspects such as establishing start-up infrastructure and supporting start-up funds and manpower for the purpose of creating start-up companies on campus.
Second, Seoul National University's start-up ecosystem was built over three generations in conjunction with the process of establishing the Korean start-up ecosystem, and the role and key actors of Seoul National University changed in each period. The first generation start-up ecosystem was born in the late 1990s by the first venture boom and industry-academic linkage policy, and entered the second generation with the start of the second venture boom in 2010, and the third generation appeared based on the government's start-up support policy reform and venture market revitalization in 2017. In each period, Seoul National University changed its role from "academic ivory tower university" to "supplier university" in knowledge and labor force in the first generation, and changed to "hub university" in the third generation through a transition period in which hub institutions and organizations were formed. Core institutions and organizations established by factors outside the university expanded the activities of naturally occurring student start-up organizations, allowing the entrepreneurship culture in the university to expand.
Third, in the current Seoul National University startup ecosystem, the entrepreneurial process of student entrepreneurs is entering each stage by utilizing the network and entrepreneurship culture attached to hub institutions and organizations. In the "formation of business ideas" stage, ideas were secured based on the "supporting culture of entrepreneurship" and the "horizontal network" between students, which were attached to the "specific space where various talents are combined." In the 'entrepreneurial opportunity recognition' stage, the business idea was verified based on the 'vertical network' between professors or senior entrepreneurs and student entrepreneurs in the 'official start-up support facility'. In the last "entrepreneurial opportunity utilization" stage, he moved to an external institution of Seoul National University to access a network to secure and utilize business opportunities, and there was also an "entrepreneurial recirculation" in the region by start-up support facilities.
The Seoul National University Startup Ecosystem, which supports student start-ups, allows students to leap to the next start-up stage through vertical and horizontal networks rooted in material attributes. The student start-up network is in a virtuous cycle by increasing the number of students challenging start-ups by accumulating the entrepreneurship culture in universities, establishing support policies. In addition, in the Seoul National University start-up ecosystem, universities support student start-ups to the stage of opportunity recognition, and connections to the outside of the start-up ecosystem are made through institutions outside the university.
In conclusion, the start-up ecosystem of Seoul National University has been transformed into a hub university based on the physical infrastructure built based on the start-up support system and changes in the venture market, and student start-ups have been made by utilizing networks attached to hub institutions and organizations. In this process, the entrepreneurship culture accumulated in universities is leading the dynamics of the startup ecosystem of Seoul National University.
This study is significant in that it analyzed the dynamics of the ecosystem by capturing the interaction between components in the student start-up process, in addition to identifying key actors and components in the university start-up ecosystem. In terms of policy, it can be used as evidence for university start-up policymakers to establish policies aimed at accumulating entrepreneurship culture rather than support at the material level.