ABSTRACT
The new neoliberal trends have enlarged the spheres of poverty and extreme poverty worldwide; Costa Rica is not an exception. This is why work has been done on a social spin-off model, an unheard-of proposal quite different from the other 56 models of business and university spin-offs worldwide.
Particularly in Latin America and Costa Rica, territorial development in rural regions often shows notable contrasts in social and economic development compared to the main cities and their capitals. Usually, the spin-off model entails a large financial commitment for a great idea in which the professors accompanying the students have a stake in the project as well as the university or businesses that have made investments in the evolution of the idea. Given that these are public resources, the idea of a social spin-off goes against all of this since the professors or university staff, as well as the university itself, do not profit from the evolution of the business idea.
The guiding question is: How can one help to improve the indicators influencing employment possibilities, thus strengthening the economy of the populations living in the several territories of Costa Rica?
Under the Fifth Helix intervene in supporting the development of these associative enterprises in Costa Rica, thus contributing to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly those linked to SDG-1, SDG-2, SDG-4, SDG-5, SDG-8, SDG-10, and SDG-11.
The study of the literature lets us conclude that the success of newly founded businesses and their scale-up from spin-offs have a clear correlation. Likewise, it shows the need for companies’ involvement in peripheral territories. Still, traditional spin-offs differ from the social spin-off model (SOS).
Inspired by the ideas of spin-offs, but not in high-tech university companies, the SOS model for the territory uses the basics of cooperativism, the foundation of administration, and is based on the planned social level and is present in the primary and secondary economy.
Using in-person attendance and synchronous communication technologies, UNED involves its students, graduates, or pupils, whether in formal education, informal education, or extension courses also offered by the university, as well as university staff, who interact with community members in the training process to generate the cooperative project, based on the intense use of disruptive technologies.
