During a thought-provoking session at NURCE, Professor Rana Zayadin from the University of Sussex presented groundbreaking research on how early career researchers (ECRs) navigate the complex terrain of entrepreneurial identity formation in science. Drawing from their study of the UK iCURe commercialisation programme, Professor Zayadin introduced the concept of Oscillatory Entrepreneurial Identity Formation. This concept reframes identity work among scientists not as a linear transition from academic to entrepreneurial, but as a dynamic, provisional process shaped by socio-institutional, collective, and internal legitimacy tensions.
What stood out in the session was the recognition that ECRs often do not fully abandon their academic identity when entering the entrepreneurial space. Instead, they inhabit a liminal space—oscillating between being scientists and entrepreneurs. This duality is not a weakness, but a defining feature of their professional reality.
The session encouraged participants to rethink entrepreneurship not as a departure from scientific values, but as an adaptive extension of them. Inspired by this perspective, researchers and professors at NURCE began to reflect on their own positions within this shifting landscape. The discussion sparked questions around how academic resources and knowledge might be monetized without compromising research integrity, and how innovation can be fostered without abandoning core scholarly commitments.
More than just offering theoretical insights, Professor Zayadin’s presentation served as a call to action: to support hybrid researcher–entrepreneur identities, embrace the in-between space of identity liminality, and explore pathways beyond the conventional bounds of academia. For many in the room, it was a moment of genuine reflection—and potentially the start of future collaborations that bridge both research and entrepreneurship.
What stood out in the session was the recognition that ECRs often do not fully abandon their academic identity when entering the entrepreneurial space. Instead, they inhabit a liminal space—oscillating between being scientists and entrepreneurs. This duality is not a weakness, but a defining feature of their professional reality.
The session encouraged participants to rethink entrepreneurship not as a departure from scientific values, but as an adaptive extension of them. Inspired by this perspective, researchers and professors at NURCE began to reflect on their own positions within this shifting landscape. The discussion sparked questions around how academic resources and knowledge might be monetized without compromising research integrity, and how innovation can be fostered without abandoning core scholarly commitments.
More than just offering theoretical insights, Professor Zayadin’s presentation served as a call to action: to support hybrid researcher–entrepreneur identities, embrace the in-between space of identity liminality, and explore pathways beyond the conventional bounds of academia. For many in the room, it was a moment of genuine reflection—and potentially the start of future collaborations that bridge both research and entrepreneurship.
