From revolutionary digital technology and biotech startups to pioneering climate innovation, UC Berkeley has become an unexpected leader in innovation and entrepreneurship (I&E). This public university, the birthplace of the Free Speech Movement in the 1960s, has, in recent decades, reinvented itself as a major source of applied research with far-reaching social, economic, and environmental impacts. While the I&E potential of every university is unique and there is no simple or formulaic approach to achieving a university’s full I&E potential, the development of innovation and entrepreneurship at Berkeley offers important lessons for other research universities and points a way forward for the future of higher education in the 21^st century.

Strategies for Building University I&E Ecosystems

1. Cultivate a campus culture that values I&E.

At most research universities, I&E culture starts with STEM faculty. That I&E culture spreads to students when professors role-model the culture for students and foster students’ entrepreneurship ambitions. The I&E culture expands to campus executives via faculty promotions into administrative leadership positions. Students also influence campus I&E culture, especially to the extent that faculty respond to student interests (such as a groundswell of interest in entrepreneurship). However, student influence on culture can be fleeting due to their graduation cycles—unless the university’s region has attributes that encourage graduates to stay to work and live in the metro area of the university (see strategic conclusion #6 below).

Faculty I&E culture doesn’t need to be, nor is it expected to be, pervasive across a campus. However, under a broadened definition of entrepreneurship, I&E culture can be inclusive across the campus community (see strategic conclusion #4 below) and not distort the complementary priorities of fundamental research (see strategic conclusion #7 below) and teaching.

At UC Berkeley, from the 1960s through the 1990s, faculty I&E culture incubated in the chemistry-related departments, the business school, and especially the EECS

department. By 2013, that I&E culture had spread throughout the campus’s STEM community. The I&E culture expanded to the campus’s executive leadership in 2015, when Berkeley professor (and serial entrepreneur) Paul Alivisatos was appointed as vice chancellor for research. Alivisatos was subsequently promoted to executive vice chancellor and provost, and the two following vice chancellors for research were faculty in EECS, Berkeley’s most entrepreneurship-oriented department. Berkeley’s I&E culture reached another milestone in 2019, when Berkeley professor (and former dean of the School of Business) Rich Lyons was appointed the campus’s first chief innovation and entrepreneurship officer and, five years later, became Berkeley’s twelfth chancellor.

2. Build an infrastructure of resources for I&E.

The infrastructure includes (1) curricula about entrepreneurship and startups (including lab-to-market courses that provide experiential learning), (2) startup accelerators, (3) incubator labs, (4) makerspaces, (5) funding for proof-of-concept / translational research, (6) groups of startup investors, and advisors (especially alumni who are experienced entrepreneurs) who engage with the campus, (7) networks of faculty and student entrepreneurs, and (8) entrepreneurship events such as pitch competitions, hackathons, and student club gatherings. The ecosystem should encompass the entire entrepreneurship journey, including ideation, incubation, acceleration, and scaling. It should also span startup sectors such as information technology, biotechnology, and social (nonprofit) ventures.

At UC Berkeley, students, faculty, and staff have the agency to establish I&E programs independently. Starting around 2013, that autonomy and a spreading I&E culture drove an uncoordinated surge in campus I&E programs. Within five years, at least one Berkeley I&E program existed for every phase of a startup journey and across multiple industry sectors. Those programs were integrated into the curricula (such as the SCET and Cleantech to Market courses) and extracurricular activities (such as Big Ideas and SkyDeck). In 2019, Berkeley’s first chief innovation and entrepreneurship officer and his team pursued strategies to harmonize the campus’s sprawling I&E ecosystem while continuing to build its capacity. One key example of that strategy was building I&E platforms (not just I&E programs) that multiple campus units could leverage.

3. Refine I&E-related practices and expertise.

These practices and expertise include collaborations with companies—especially startups—on R&D funding (via, e.g., SBIR and STTR US government grants), industry R&D consortia, IP licensing, equity ownership, conflict of interest oversight, shared use of R&D facilities, and, in general, commercializing innovations developed on campus.

In 2004, UC Berkeley established the Industry Alliances Office (IAO), a team with the expertise to negotiate research collaborations with companies (individually and in the form of industry consortia). To expand the campus’s opportunities to collaborate with companies, the IAO and Berkeley’s Office of Technology Licensing were reorganized under the newly formed Office of Intellectual Property and Industry Research Alliances. That office was promoted as a “one-stop shop” for companies to collaborate with Berkeley on research and the commercialization of innovations from the campus’s research. The reorganization set the campus on a trajectory of ongoing refinement to its expertise in company-funded research, IP licensing, startup equity management, conflict of interest oversight, and other I&E-related activities.

Strategies For Advancing University I&E From Good to Great

4. Align university leadership with campus I&E culture.

This alignment is achieved when campus executive leaders go beyond supporting I&E to championing it and officially recognizing I&E in faculty appointments and promotions.

In 2007, UC Berkeley’s chancellor and the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab’s director cofounded the East Bay Green Corridor, a regional partnership with a mission that included cleantech I&E. In 2012, the deans of the College of Engineering and the School of Business, along with the vice chancellor for research, launched the SkyDeck startup accelerator. In 2018, Berkeley leadership acknowledged that I&E would be considered in faculty appointments and promotions, and in 2024 the University of California’s ten-campus system officially updated its policy. An executive leadership team that championed I&E reached a culminating milestone in 2024 when Berkeley’s first chief innovation and entrepreneurship officer was appointed Berkeley’s twelfth chancellor.

5. Make I&E inclusive by broadening its mindset to make it relevant to the entire campus community.

I&E diversity and inclusiveness are facilitated by broadening the definition of entrepreneurship beyond starting for-profit ventures to pursuing high-impact, socially-beneficial ventures and life opportunities.

In 2018, a UC Berkeley faculty-led report recommended expanding the concept of entrepreneurship so that the benefits of its mindset could be applied across the campus, including in the humanities and social sciences. That recommendation inspired the campus to launch, in 2020, the Berkeley Changemaker, a certificate program that offers more than forty courses based on three throughlines: critical thinking, communication, and collaboration.

Changemaker courses have become some of Berkeley’s most popular, which shows how an entrepreneurial mindset is now mainstream throughout the campus community. The 2024 launch of the Berkeley Haas Entrepreneurship Hub (eHub) further builds upon this ethos.

6. Establish I&E partnerships with local governments, nearby R&D-intensive organizations, and real estate developers.

Those local partnerships can enable universities to become vortexes for growing a supercritical mass of local human talent—a key attribute of the world’s most productive I&E ecosystems. That attribute drives I&E productivity because of the fundamental importance of deep and broad talent (across science, engineering, manufacturing, management, marketing, finance, law, etc.). Also, the talent pool’s geographical proximity to the campus maximizes the interpersonal relationships (especially with alumni) and associated serendipitous interactions that often lead to cofounding startups and scaling them. Year after year, universities attract and build human talent. If a university’s local region can provide attributes to retain much of that human talent when those people graduate, universities and their regions can grow massive innovation economies.

In 2009, UC Berkeley cofounded the Berkeley Startup Cluster (BSC) with the City of Berkeley Office of Economic Development, the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce, the Downtown Berkeley Association, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. The BSC’s initial mission was to slow “innovation drain” by helping spinout companies from the campus and national lab to locate and grow in Berkeley, instead of about fifty miles away in Silicon Valley. By 2023, the BSC had identified about four hundred innovation companies (including startups and R&D-intensive established corporations) with addresses in Berkeley.

In 2021, the Bakar BioEnginuity Hub building opened on the southern edge of Berkeley’s core campus. The building houses Bakar Bio Labs—92,000 square feet of state-of-the-art lab, office, and meeting space, including incubator facilities for dozens of biotech startup companies. Under a similar model, in 2028, the new Bakar Labs facility is expected to open on the western edge of Berkeley’s campus, and its cutting-edge space and programs will host and support dozens of energy and materials tech startups.

At the onset of 2024, the BSC updated its land use vision and roadmap in recognition that the city’s I&E ecosystem (including its variety of office and lab space, such as Bakar Bio Labs and the new Bakar Labs facility) was nearing an inflection point. Various R&D-oriented real estate projects were underway that, when viewed holistically and combined with Berkeley’s existing innovation assets, could elevate the city’s status into a world-class cluster for innovation and startups (distinct from but synergistic with the university’s I&E stature).

7. Manage I&E to complement fundamental research.

As with all large, complex organizations, universities must prioritize resources to excel in their mission. Accordingly, universities should manage any expanding capacity for translational research and societal impact such that the expansion complements (instead of displaces) fundamental research. I&E can flow from and stimulate fundamental research. Universities with robust I&E ecosystems must manage this dynamic because fundamental research and quality teaching are critical to fostering an I&E ecosystem that continually reinvents itself to address the shifting needs of our rapidly changing world.

At UC Berkeley, leaders in academic research—such as professors David Schaffer, Jennifer Doudna, Jay Keasling, Amy Herr, and Paul Alivisatos—have noted how their labs’ engagement with entrepreneurship has enriched their scholarly research. In a September 2024 campus-wide interview, Rich Lyons—Berkeley’s current chancellor and strong advocate of university I&E—expressed the importance of unwavering support for fundamental research when he said in a September 2024 campus interview, “The world knows about Berkeley because of the fundamental research we do….And we forget that at our peril.”

For more insights about UC Berkeley’s I&E ecosystem, visit startupcampus.berkeley.edu.

Editorial Note

This post is adapted from Chapter 7 of the book "Startup Campus: How UC Berkeley Became an Unexpected Leader in Entrepreneurship and Startups" published August 19, 2025 by the University of California, Berkeley Innovation and Entrepreneurship Council.

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