Institutional Models Supporting Academic Spin-offs in the Humanities and Social Sciences: Evidences from a Large and Comprehensive University

This article examines how universities design institutional frameworks, governance arrangements, and support infrastructures to foster academic spin-offs in the Humanities and Social Sciences (HASS). While research on academic entrepreneurship has traditionally focused on science- and technology-based fields, universities are increasingly required to valorise knowledge produced in non-technological domains. Building on the literature on the Third Mission of universities, knowledge valorisation, and academic entrepreneurship, the article develops an integrated institutional framework that accounts for heterogeneous entrepreneurial pathways, support mechanisms, and evaluation practices relevant to HASS-oriented ventures. The framework is empirically illustrated through a case study of the University of Bologna, a large and comprehensive European university. Adopting a descriptive and institutional approach, the analysis highlights the role of inclusive governance, differentiated support pipelines, entrepreneurial culture creation, and ecosystem embeddedness in enabling nontechnological academic entrepreneurship. The findings contribute to ongoing debates on the diversification of knowledge transfer mechanisms and offer implications for scholars, university managers, and policymakers.