New Measures of University Contributions to Regional Economies: A Template

Association Of Public And Land-Grant Universities, Washington DC

Investigators

Abstract

The Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) will conduct a pair of workshop activities in 2011 to assist development of a set of metrics to better gauge the contributions of public universities to their resident economic regions. The workshops are intended to bring the thinking of knowledgeable personnel from APLU member academic institutions and of selected other experts to bear in identifying and refining appropriate metrics for this purpose. Based on previous work by APLU on this topic, the chief interest will be in metrics addressing knowledge capital and human capital. One workshop will be conducted in conjunction with the June 2011 meeting of APLU's Commission on Innovation, Competitiveness, and Economic Prosperity (CICEP), in Portland, Oregon (estimated 100 participants). The second, follow-on workshop is planned for September or October 2011, in Washington DC (estimated 50 participants). The overall goal of the workshop process is to prepare a well defined set of metrics covering both knowledge and human capital for presentation and discussion to the full APLU membership in late fall 2011. The project's findings should be relevant to wide range of academic institutions, not just public institutions, where similar issues of measuring and managing university links to the larger economy often arise. The findings would also be of interest to the external community of scholars, practitioners, stakeholders, and others with interest in better measuring and/or managing the impacts of knowledge and skills development on the economy. NSF would also directly benefit, as it seeks to enlarge and refine its annual collection of data about the resources and achievements of the U.S. academic research system.