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Academic entrepreneurship has drawn increasing attention over the past decades, particularly with the rise of the University’s third mission and of the Entrepreneurial University model. This growing interest has produced a both complex and fragmented body of literature, which calls for conceptual clarification. Moreover, the dominant focus has often been placed on the financial and economic potential of academic entrepreneurship, while its capacity to address current grand challenges remains underexplored. This paper adopts a problematizing review approach to examine how academic social entrepreneurship, i.e. initiatives undertaken to meaningfully contribute to society and tackle grand challenges, is positioned within the literature. In doing so, it challenges prevailing assumptions underpinning academic entrepreneurship and highlights promising avenues for future research.