Most technology business incubators (TBIs) in the Philippines began life as grant-funded projects. A university or agency receives funding, hires a small team, recruits a batch of startups, and runs an incubation program for a few years. Then the grant cycle ends. Some incubators fade. Others keep going, and a few become stronger than before.
My master’s thesis set out to understand that difference. The theory that came out of it, which I call the Adaptive Resilience of Philippine TBIs, is my attempt to describe what the incubators that last are actually doing.
First, what is a TBI?
A technology business incubator is a support system for early-stage tech startups. It gives founders some combination of mentoring, workspace, training, connections to investors and partners, and help turning research or ideas into products. In the Philippines, many TBIs are hosted by state universities and were set up with government support.
How I studied it
I interviewed fifteen people: ten incubator managers and five startup founders, from incubators across Luzon, the Visayas, and Mindanao. I used an approach called constructivist grounded theory. Instead of starting with an existing theory and testing it, grounded theory builds a new explanation from the ground up, out of what participants actually say. I kept interviewing until new conversations stopped adding anything new to the picture.
The idea in one sentence
Adaptive resilience is an incubator’s capacity to withstand disruptions, adapt its processes, and keep doing its two jobs, supporting startups and developing its local ecosystem, over the long term.
The key word is adaptive. Resilience here is not about holding on until the next grant arrives. It is about changing how the incubator works so that it no longer depends on any single source of support.
Three parts of adaptive resilience
1. Adaptively resilient organizations. This is about mindset and structure. The incubators I studied are moving away from seeing themselves as temporary, grant-funded projects and toward running as stable, more business-like organizations. They are also shifting from one-size-fits-all programs to founder-centered support: tailored mentoring and practical help with the legal and financial side of building a company.
2. Adaptively resilient processes. This is about how the work gets done. Three patterns stood out:
- A structured, hands-on incubation journey, from careful screening of applicants to support that continues after a startup graduates.
- Built-in flexibility. Many incubators moved to virtual and hybrid incubation during the pandemic and kept it, because it let them reach founders far beyond their campus.
- Collaboration over competition. Incubators are forming consortiums, co-incubating startups with partner incubators, sharing resources, and taking part in local policy discussions.
3. Adaptive resilience results. This is what the first two produce, at three levels: startups that are more viable and better able to commercialize their technology and find funding; incubators that are more capable and skilled themselves; and regional economies with stronger innovation ecosystems and more visibility.
Why this matters beyond the incubator
Two findings matter for the country as a whole. First, incubators are one of the most practical ways to spread innovation and economic opportunity beyond Metro Manila and other major cities. A resilient incubator in a regional university can keep local talent local. Second, the shift to hybrid incubation is not a pandemic leftover. It has become a permanent part of how Philippine incubators work, and it makes them far less limited by geography.
The catch
Becoming more business-like solves one problem and creates others. As incubators look for their own revenue, through fees or equity stakes in startups, there is a real risk of mission drift: favoring commercially “safe” startups over more innovative ones, becoming less accessible to founders from disadvantaged backgrounds, or entering equity arrangements that are unfair to founders. Staff trained in academic settings may also need new management skills. Financial resilience, in other words, needs to come with clear governance and ethical guidelines.
What the study does not cover
No representatives from government agencies agreed to be interviewed, so the policy-maker’s perspective is missing. The study is also qualitative: it explains how and why, but it does not measure how common these patterns are. Both are good directions for future research.
Where I’m taking this next
In my doctoral research in Sustainability at UP Open University, I am extending this work by looking at incubators as open systems, organizations that survive by constantly exchanging people, knowledge, and resources with their surroundings, and by asking how their results line up with the economic, social, and environmental dimensions of sustainability.
If you run, work in, or have been through a Philippine incubator, I would like to hear whether this matches your experience. You can reach me here.
This post summarizes my thesis, “Perspectives on Technology Business Incubators (TBIs) for Philippine Startups: A Grounded Theory Approach,” Master of Research and Development Management, Faculty of Management and Development Studies, University of the Philippines Open University, 2025. Thesis adviser: Asst. Prof. Leo Mendel D. Rosario, PhD.
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