Traditionally, teaching and research have been the main missions of a university. This has gradually changed with the emergence of disciplines such as biotechnology, increased globalization, reduced basic funding and the new perspectives on the role of university ‘in the system of knowledge production. As knowledge becomes an increasingly important part of innovation, the university as a knowledge-producing and disseminating institution plays a larger role in industrial innovation. Thus, in a knowledge- based economy, the university becomes a key element of the innovation system both as human capital and seed-bed of new firms. In today’s global landscape of relentless change and innovation, the mission of universities has thus become multi-faceted and they must see themselves as part of the larger global enterprise of creating, imparting, applying and commercializing knowledge. Research universities around the world are increasingly embracing an entrepreneurial dimension. They leverage on the natural complimentarity between creating, imparting, and applying knowledge and create spin-off companies and produce licenses and patents. Therefore to stay relevant and prosper, universities in the 21st century should play three roles, deliver quality undergraduate and post graduate’ education, conduct high impact research and foster entrepreneurship and industry involvement.

As scientific knowledge and commercialization of research results ("entrepreneurial science’) are becoming increasingly important for innovation and new business development, universities can play an enhanced role in innovation. Hence, universities in the world that were policy makers earlier are now, playing a direct role as actors in regional and national development. For instance, Oulu University in Finland through its entrepreneurial activities brought about considerable industrial growth and economic development in the region, which is now globally known as "Oulu Phenomenon".

Today we are living in a fiercely competitive knowledge-based globalized environment where economic growth is no longer efficiency-driven, but innovation-driven, and innovators, inventors and entrepreneurs have become the critical human resources of economic development. If you look at most successful countries, they have built and sustained vibrant innovation systems.

A society with high levels of knowledge and management skills will not produce breakthroughs in products or processes needed for economic advance without a strong base of entrepreneurs and spirit of entrepreneurship that extends across society. Hence, we need to produce graduates who can transform new ideas, thoughts and knowledge into innovative products and services and who can contribute towards improving the existing products and services. We want our present day graduates not to wait until opportunities come to them. No deer will jump into the mouth of a sleeping lion! We need them to chase after opportunities, capture them and create new enterprises. If no opportunities exist, they should be able to create new opportunities.

In the old economy, the system of education was geared to producing graduates for a career of life, but is the present economy, -we need to produce graduates for a life of careers. That means we got to equip our students with multiple skills and competencies so that they could fit into a wider range of employment opportunities. We would like our graduates to, be bold and adventurous and take calculated risk while being rooted in the reality and embark upon innovative, challenging and novel enterprises rather than seeking "unexciting, non-challenging and traditional pen-pushing positions. In other words, we would like them to charter new courses and get onto untrodden paths rather than treading along the beaten track.

What Munidasa Cumarathunga said several decades ago, "Aluth aluth da nothanna jathiya Iowa nonagi" - A nation that is not innovative will never prosper in the world - is more relevant today than ever before. As Charles Darwin said " It is not the strongest species that would survive nor the most intelligent, but the species most responsive to change". This applies equally to any country, nation and institution. Therefore the universities need to appropriately and swiftly respond to change if they are to survive in the fiercely competitive and rapidly growing global landscape of higher education.

In this connection, as coined by Prof. Shih Choon Fong, the President of the National University of Singapore," innovative intelligence" - the ability to translate ideas and knowledge to improve products and services, as well as create new ones - and "entrepreneurial intelligence" - capacity to create new enterprise from opportunities - assume paramount importance. As S. R. Nathan, President of Singapore once said " By supporting entrepreneurship and fostering innovation, we will encourage more people to dream of new ideas, pursue them with passion and open up new opportunities for economy"

Several decades ago, MIT saw the values of a science and technology-led university education with an enterprise dimension. A study conducted in 1997 revealed that if the companies founded by MIT graduates and faculty formed an independent nation, their revenues would make them the 24 the largest economy in the world with annual sales of US$ 232 billion, which is more than double the GDP of Singapore.

Similarly National University of Singapore (NUS) has taken steps to nurture an entrepreneurial culture by establishing NUS enterprises in Silicon Valley in partnership with Stanford and in Bio Valley with the University of Pennsylvania. In these entrepreneurial hubs, students are immersed in an entrepreneurial environment and imbibe entrepreneurial spirit and work with peers and entrepreneurs. Here they do internships with technology based start-ups for one year while attending entrepreneurship and discipline-based courses at partner universities. As NUS President says, "we have no choice, but to think "global", breathe "global" and be "global". We are globally oriented because there is neither retreat nor hinterland".

Premier entrepreneurial universities in the world such as Stanford, Berkley, Pennsylvania and MIT have learnt to balance their academic and entrepreneurial roles and harvest the benefits. Universities such as MIT and Stanford, which had been considered as anomalies within the US academic system in the past now have become the models for other universities to emulate. We can learn a great deal from the above success stories. However, it should be emphasized that high quality, cutting edge research is required to create new knowledge and new industrial innovations of high value as mediocre or poor research will produce neither new knowledge nor industrial innovations.

If we look at some highly prestigious as well as rapidly developing universities in the world, there are breaking away from traditions and bringing new perspectives and vision to universities by installing those with experience in industry and world of work as the Vice-Chancellors. For instance, Harvard University of USA, one of the most prestigious universities in the world, appointed Larry Summers, former US Secretary of the Treasury as the President. Some years ago, Cambridge university recruited Alec Broers, an Australian research engineer from IBM New York, its first Vice-Chancellor from outside Britain while the Oxford university appointed John Hood, a consulting Engineer and former Vice-Chancellor of Auckland University from New Zealand as the Vice-chancellor of Oxford in 2004. Such a decision was simply unthinkable in the past in the two most prestigious universities in Britain with strong traditions and values peculiar to them. Thus Oxford and Cambridge are fishing and competing in the global market place for talents and ideas. They have made the watershed decision to search globally for their academic leaders.

Prof. Shih Choon Fong, the President of the NUS has worked at General Electrical Company in USA for seven years before joining it. He has now made the NUS a topnotch university, coming within the top 5 in Asia and Australia. In Japan increasing number of universities now have high level administrators who have been recruited from industrial research positions. There are many such examples in the higher education landscape of the world, which show how they have responded to change and the importance of having a leader with an entrepreneurial drive and experience so as to create an entrepreneurial university. In Brazil, in the state of Rio de Janiero, government offered incentives for companies, and universities to collaborate in revising rigid academic structures in order to make undergraduate education both more interdisciplinary and more responsive to the needs of the employers.

If we look at some entrepreneurial universities in Europe, we can learn many lessons and get new ideas. For instance, Chalmers University of Technology (CUT) in Sweden, one of the 10 best technical universities in Europe, has a Vice-Rector for external activities/University-Industry-Government cooperation.

It has a Department of Innovation Engineering and Management. Between 1978 and 1998, it has produced 225 spin-offs. The Chalmers School of Entrepreneurship (CSE) at CUT recruits students from Engineering, Business and Design school. Thus it is not confined only to Management students as in our country. Every year 20-25 students are selected on the basis of comprehensive applications and interviews by the staff of CSE and psychologists.