Exploring effective and value-adding measures and/or indicators for business accelerators and incubators in CAIN membership

The efficacy of business accelerators and incubators (BAIs) in advancing innovation is consistently challenged by a variety of players (e.g. media, funders, entrepreneurs, etc.) and it is very difficult to gather defensible evidence beyond anecdotal. CAIN, seen as a representative voice of BAI’s in Canada, is frequently approached to defend the value of BAI’s. BAI’s also are undergoing scrutiny from their funders and need to generate evidence of the impact of their service to Canadian entrepreneurs to generate continued funding support. Very little aggregate data exists on innovation and BAI’s in Canada and the data is typically non-uniform. Furthermore, different BAIs have different business models and may warrant different data capture and reporting, despite many indicators being similar, extending beyond conventional economic metrics. CAIN is embarking on a process to understand what measures and/or indicators are the most effective and desirable to its members and primary stakeholders.

Faculty Supervisor:

Oleksiy Osiyevskyy

Student:

Partner:

Canadian Accelerator and Incubator Network

Discipline:

Business

Sector:

Other services (except public administration)

University:

University of Calgary

Program: