Knowledge spillover creation in university-based entrepreneurial ecosystem: the role of the Italian “Contamination Labs”

This paper contributes to the debate on knowledge spillover in the university-based entrepreneurial ecosystem, with the aim to investigate its role for the development of an entrepreneurial mindset in students. Starting from the literature stream on entrepreneurial university and knowledge spillover entrepreneurship, the paper analyses the process of intentional and unintentional knowledge flows among students, industries, and institutions. Through a case study, the Contamination Lab (CLab@Salento) at the University of Salento in Italy, the paper describes the learning processes activated within an educational programme to create an entrepreneurial mindset in students and analyses the different knowledge flows among the stakeholders populating the local entrepreneurial ecosystem. Findings demonstrated the crucial role of CLab@Salento for intentional and unintentional knowledge spillovers, where knowledge contamination processes such as business idea presentation, open innovation challenge, contamination workshop, enterprise projects, business game, and students@abroad are important vehicles for effective knowledge transfer in an entrepreneurial ecosystem.