Universities as Drivers for Economic Transformation

Both the Bush Administration and incoming Congressional Democrat leadership plan to put higher education under the spotlight in 2007, stressing issues of accessibility and cost containment. While their approaches to the problems will be different, both sides agree universities will play even greater roles in maintaining U.S. economic leadership in the 21st century than they have in the past.



Accessibility and affordability are only two of the issues before the nation's universities and colleges. Increasingly, institutions of higher education are called on to support economic vitality through research and technology commercialization. States, local governments, foundations and business organizations are among those pushing academia in this direction through various TBED programs and policies.



Universities that have been most effective in launching and supporting knowledge economies perform world-class research with internationally prominent faculty, state-of-the art research infrastructures, and leadership who view universities as partners with industry and government. As a result, many states have adopted a variety of strategies to strengthen the research and technology commercialization capacity of their public and private institutions of higher education.



The new SSTI publication A Resource Guide for Technology-based Economic Development identifies the key features, success factors and issues to consider for each of the four most important approaches deployed by state TBED programs:

• building research excellence in strategic research areas;
• attracting and retaining world class "star research" faculty;
• linking academic researchers and industry; and,
• exploiting university-developed intellectual property to creat new companies, products and processes.

The guide includes successful examples of each approach and a discussion of the types and level of resources required for success.



A Resource Guide for Technology-based Economic Development is available for download or purchase from SSTI. More information is provided in the article below.



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