By Professor Geraint Rees

More than half of young Britons are unable to name a single entrepreneur.

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The poll that revealed this was designed to show that we need to get behind UK entrepreneurs.

But what if the survey had asked where businesses are born?

I imagine people would point to garages, co-working spaces, perhaps the City.

But I doubt they would include university campuses.

UCL research confirms this blind spot: most people simply don't associate universities with business creation.

If we’re going to reinvigorate Britain’s entrepreneurial ambition, as the campaign responsible for the survey aims to do, then we need to put universities at the heart of the conversation.

I have spent thirty years at the intersection of the two worlds of universities and entrepreneurship including advising DeepMind.

The conventional story is simple. Universities generate knowledge. Some knowledge has commercial potential. Spinouts - with the help of universities - capture that potential. The university's role is to produce discoveries and get out of the way.

This story mistakes a byproduct for the purpose. Universities do not exist to generate startups. But they are essential for generating entrepreneurs.

Firstly, universities serve a need as old as humanity: the need to understand. A child asking why the sky is blue is responding to a drive that does not diminish with age. It intensifies. It differentiates into physics, philosophy, history, and all the other ways humans have found to pursue questions that will not leave them alone. Universities exist because this need requires protection.

Secondly, markets will not fund inquiry with no obvious payoff. Governments will not sustain questions that challenge their authority. The purposeless pursuit of understanding – a precondition for innovation and enterprise – needs institutional shelter. Universities provide it.

And thirdly, universities cultivate capacities that human nature does not provide – but enterprise desperately needs. Chiefly, risk-taking. Humans are naturally risk-averse. Yet progress depends on people willing to challenge orthodoxies, abandon security, and bet on uncertain outcomes. Every scientific revolution required someone to risk their reputation on an unpopular idea. Every new venture requires someone to risk their livelihood on an unproven concept. Risk-taking requires environments where failure is not catastrophic. Universities are among the few institutions that cultivate this capacity. The ecosystem around a university normalises risk-taking for people who would otherwise never attempt it.

This is why universities generate so much entrepreneurial activity, even though entrepreneurship is not their purpose. They cultivate the capacities that entrepreneurship requires. The university functions as a reservoir, continuously replenishing what the entrepreneurial ecosystem draws down.

Enterprise is having a moment – the Government recognises the importance of a vibrant start-up culture. Alongside the last Budget, the Chancellor published a paper on entrepreneurship in the UK.

Meanwhile the campaign responsible for the survey is backed by big names such as the founders of Ovo Energy and Lastminute.com. They are recommending the government establish a minister for entrepreneurship as a dedicated champion for high-growth companies.

But any campaign for enterprise needs to recognise that universities are more than spinout factories. Commercialisation metrics measure one expression of entrepreneurial spirit, but they do not measure the spirit itself.

Universities are the infrastructure that channels human curiosity into systematic knowledge. The cultures that normalise intellectual and commercial risk. The physical spaces where people who disagree must continue to coexist.

At UCL, we are celebrating our two hundredth anniversary. Much has changed since 1826. But some things persist. We form people who can tolerate uncertainty, disagree without fragmenting, and take risks that human nature would have them avoid. These are the qualities that will enable our next generation of entrepreneurs to succeed.

Professor Geraint Rees is UCL's Vice-Provost for Research, Innovation & Global Engagement.

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