Early-stage researchers (ESRs - PhDs and Post-docs) are repeatedly touted as an untapped source of high-potential entrepreneurship. However, most entrepreneurship initiatives have either focused on undergraduate students or on consolidated scientists (PIs and professors). We argue that attempts to translate these initiatives to engage early-stage researchers (ESRs) are missing the positive impact of entrepreneurship beyond the direct commercialization of scientific outputs.
In this experiment we aim to achieve two objectives: 1) establish and measure the effect size of a narrow view of entrepreneurship as a linear – patent-centric – science commercialization path for ESRs, and 2) identify to what extent framing the alignment between ESRs’ social identity and the framing of an entrepreneurship training intervention can increase the likelihood of a) engaging in entrepreneurial training activities, b) the adherence to such activities.