The effectiveness of business incubators as the element of the universities’ spin-off strategy in Russia

The common vision on business incubators considers them as an important part of the regional innovation infrastructure, with a special mission of innovation-based start-ups support and eco-systems creation. It seems beyond question that business incubators are also important elements of the universities’ system of technology transfer. University researchers and students create spin-off companies to commercialize valuable R&D results, while universities are interested in profits and knowledge sharing and, thus, nurture these spin-off companies via business incubators. Despite the prevalence of this vision, the problem of business incubators effectiveness assessment is not solved in a systematic way. One of the reasons is the diversity of models and institutional contexts in which business incubators act. In this article the system of performance indicators for universities, establishing business incubators, has been proposed. To develop this system, a questionnaire survey was conducted. A real options-driven approach is used for criteria selection.