Are we Speaking the same Language? Using Topic Models to shed light on Research Utilization issues between Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Scholars and Policy-Makers

This paper examines the relationship between academic research on entrepreneurial ecosystems and the policy discourse of the four UK nations (Scotland, England, Wales, and Northern Ireland). Using the BERTopic, we analyse two corpora: the academic literature on entrepreneurial ecosystems as it pertains to each nation, and policy documentation from national and local government sources. By comparing the dominant topics across these two corpora, we assess the degree to which academic findings are reflected – or absent – in how policy-makers frame entrepreneurship and regional development.

The study contributes to a growing literature on research utilization in policy contexts, and applies natural language processing to advance this discussion by enabling analysis of substantially larger volumes of text than traditional methods permit. A core argument is that the heterogeneous nature of entrepreneurial ecosystems, well-established in the academic literature, may not be adequately captured in policy discourse, with implications for the quality of place-based policy design.

Joint work with Stephen Green (Heriot-Watt University). Work in progress.

Recommended citation: Medeiros, C. & Green, S. (2024). Are we speaking the same language? Using topic models to shed light on research utilization issues between entrepreneurial ecosystem scholars and policy-makers. Working paper.