KUWAIT CITY, March 10, (KUNA): A recent study showed that business incubators are a strategic tool for economic development, as they help create job opportunities and transfer technologies, as well as expand existing businesses.

Business incubators have the ability to provide business services and high-level support, including networks of contacts to accelerate the development of leading companies along with small startups, in addition to existing companies, Dr Hanadi Al-Mubaraki from the Faculty of Engineering and Petroleum at Kuwait University told KUNA on Sunday.

The professor added that the study she conducted with Dr Michael Busler from Richard Stockton College of New Jersey found that business incubators are very successful in economic development and creating job opportunities in the United States and on the international level.

“There are an estimated 7,000 business incubators at present across the world, 1,800 of which are in the US and 900 in Europe,” noted Al-Mubaraki.

The study is based on the evaluation of both quantitative and qualitative results, which indicate that the incubators’ program is “an added value to the market,” she said, further adding that the result of surveys and case studies indicates that this added value creates job opportunities, transfers technology, enhances marketing, and reduces indirect start-up cost for companies.

Al-Mubaraki said “the findings also indicate that the success of the “incubated” leads to creating sustainable companies with five criteria involved; clear goals, incubator location, access to services, job opportunity creation, and finally, economic development strategy.

“When these criteria are met, they lead to a survival rate of 90 percent, which leads to sustainability in the market.” Business incubators provide a helpful and supportive educational environment to entrepreneurs during the critical stages of starting a new business. The goal of incubators, she remarked, is to develop the company’s business as they help to take care of the companies that will pave the way for the wealth of the country and employment in the future, she noted.

The findings of the study show that there are five benefits of incubators; an incubator is a powerful tool in economic development strategy to create job opportunities; it promotes entrepreneurship; it helps with technology transfer; it supports corporate sustainability; and it helps diversify the economy and the corporate field in the country concerned.