Les limites de la proximité spatiale pour l'essaimage académique

This article explores science/industry relationships with reference to enterprise and laboratory proximity. Data is drawn from an earlier publication by Terry Shinn and Erwan Lamy that focus on categories of entrepreneurial involvement for a small sample of scientist-entrepreneurs. The question is raised about the degree to which proximity between laboratory and enterprise is important to establish good relations between science and industry. This article suggests that the distance from research centers is of only secondary significance, since the enterprise localization is essentially contingent upon personal or professional networks. Indeed the maintenance of distance between science poles and purveyors of enterprise projects can participate in development of effective organizational relations, while to the contrary, close proximity can interfere with entrepreneurial coherence, which depends more decisively on the synergies that emerges between the firm and the laboratory. These synergies can be coupled to proximity, but not directly so. © 2008 Lavoisier, Paris. Tous droits réservés.