The creation of new technology-based firms at the Spanish public research institutions: an analysis of their financial statements

Recently, several studies have suggested that spin-off firms are not the most useful of the available pathways for transferring scientific knowledge from public research institutions to industry, even in the countries where the spin-off phenomenon is more extended. This paper carries out a descriptive analysis of the financial statements of 72 new technology-based firms created by the Spanish universities and the Spanish National Research Council between the years 1998 and 2006. We find that, although public research-based spin-offs show positive asset and employment growth rates, they tend to remain relatively small and fail to generate positive returns to their investors. Several directions for redesigning spin-off policy follow from this analysis.