On 29th October, CENTRIM promoted a world-class webinar on Innovation Habitats with the contribution of an international panel of academics and practitioners. More than 60 attendees, from Australia to Colombia, had the opportunity to listen and discuss the state-of-the-art research on business incubators, accelerators and science and technology parks.

The webinar “Sustainable Entrepreneurial Ecosystems: New Modes and Changing Roles of Entrepreneurship Intermediaries and Innovation Habitats in the Aftermath of Covid-19” was organised by CENTRIM with the support of the British Academy of Management, in alignment with the Innovation Special Interest Group, chaired by Nick Marshal, member of CENTRIM. The panel, chaired by Aline Figlioli, Research Fellow at CENTRIM, had presentations from the following speakers:

• George Tsekouras, Head of CENTRIM, started the event by presenting the fruitful history of CENTRIM in promoting research with impact in the “real-world”, closing the loop’ between academy and the wider society (more about CENTRIM at: https://www.brighton.ac.uk/centrim/what-we-do/index.aspx);
• Mat Hunter, Co-CEO of PLUS X Innovation Hubs, introduced the BRITE programme, a partnership between the UoB and PLUS X (find more about BRITE at https://plusx.space/innovation/brite/), an ignited the discussion with questions about the future of innovation hubs;
• Sarfraz Mian, Professor of Entrepreneurship and Policy, and Chair of the Marketing & Management Department at the State University of New York, discussed the changing landscape of business incubation;
• Bart Clarysse, Chair and Professor of Entrepreneurship, ETH Zurich, from Switzerland, focused on the acceleration of technology entrepreneurs and its relation with the local entrepreneurial ecosystem; and
• Josep Piqué, CEO of La Salle Technova Barcelona, and Past President of the International Association of Science Parks  (IASP), from Spain, discussed the role of Modern Urban Science Parks and Areas of Innovation.

A very rich discussion took place among the panellists, with questions from the audience,  about the trends and new dynamics of sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystems in times of rapid change and crisis.

In the last part of the session, Professor Sarfraz Mian discussed the prospects of a Special Issue on the subject addressed in the webinar in a high-ranked academic journal and introduced the forthcoming publication “Handbook of Research on Business Incubation and Acceleration: a Global Perspective”, that has as co-writers Bart Clarisse, Josep Pique and Aline Figlioli.