Abstract: Universities are under increasing pressure to change their governance models and top management so that they can carry out a third mission - an entrepreneurial university, that implies keeping the rhythm with changing business conditions. In the knowledge-based economy, universities need to adapt and formulate the most appropriate strategies to improve their knowledge and intellectual wealth in order to create value for society and to contribute significantly to their community development. The new roles of universities in the knowledge economy, the increasing pressure of academic competition due to ranking systems and the changes imposed by the Bologna process for European universities, have generated significant mutations in their governance. These mutations highlight the need for new directions of university governance that strengthen the correlation between intellectual capital management and performance management. We aim to present the roles of great influence attributed to universities and to argue the need for the development of entrepreneurial initiatives. We will look at both the opportunities and the difficulties faced today by universities on several levels. We support the relevance of this analysis to the idea that universities focused on entrepreneurship, technological development and research have a strong impact on the local economic environment. Actually, the economic development is produced through the entrepreneurial ecosystem created in these universities, start-ups created by students and spin-offs developed in research universities. We will approach a series of strategies that need to be applied by universities that are interested in becoming more active in the field of entrepreneurship. 

Key words: university, knowledge-based economy, entrepreneurship, governance, strategy.

JEL classification: M10, M12, M13.