A Comparative Study of Incubators’ Landscapes in Europe and the Middle East

Abstract

This paper reviews literature on incubator models in Europe and the Middle East. We focus on four dimensions: 1) incubators graduate firms, 2) incubators goals, 3) incubators services, and 4) incubators client firms. The methodologies adopted in this study are literature reviews and case studies. The paper concludes four results. First, the total number of graduate firms that have emerged from incubator models in Europe (832) and the Middle East (43). This difference reflects a high rate of start-up companies inside the incubators that graduate a high number of companies. Second, incubators goals focus on fostering entrepreneurship, jobs creation and technology commercialization. Third, incubators services, tangible and intangible, are stronger in Europe than in Middle East models (medium).  Finally, in Europe, the total number of incubators client firms is 391, whereas in the Middle East it is 68. We attributed this to the differences in years in which they were founded.

Keywords: Technology incubators, Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Economic development.