Portfolios for entrepreneurship and self-evaluation of higher education institutions

The emergence of entrepreneurial university has pushed the governments and institutions involved in higher education into research and implement new systems for measuring performance and efficiency. However the evidence is critical: a lot of data, a lot of models, a lot of ways to be entrepreneurial, and a great difficulty to make comparative, and definitely, a great complexity in the application of methodologies of assessment for heterogeneous scenarios. A rich literature has developed indicators of inputs and outputs of activities involving first, second and third mission of universities exploring 'knowledge transference' (KT) processes: learning-teaching, diffusion and production of knowledge in research, patents and licensing. A great obstacle in the management and assessment of universities is to provide timely and meaningful feedback loops on performance, efficiency and potential to students, teachers, researchers, innovation and academic managers at higher levels. The new model of university needs to identify and assess the main actors of universities by means structured set of scaffold assessment focusing to use their knowledge base, analytical, practical and creative skills and attitudes, and wisdom/based to become society's leaders. The aim of this paper is to explore the application of methodologies of portfolio, understood as a tool to management, quality assurance, assessment and accreditation of KT processes, to the assessment of universities. (C) 2009 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of Dr. Zafer Bekirogullari of Y.B.