EAGER: Defining and Measuring University Economic Engagement: The Association of Public and Land Grant Universities Innovation and Economic Prosperity (APLU-IEP) Data Platform

The University Of Central Florida Board Of Trustees, Orlando FL

Investigators

Abstract

The Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) has offered a voluntary program to encourage university community engagement since 2012. To participate in the APLU program, universities conduct an intensive self-study process that results previously unavailable information. The program has amassed applications containing descriptive information about the structures, processes, and outputs of university economic engagement. These application documents represent a valuable source of information to help us better understand how universities engage with their communities to foster economic prosperity, how they view their role in their innovation ecosystems and how they measure their progress in economic engagement. Defining, measuring and advancing university economic engagement is a potentially transformative research initiative for moving forward science and innovation policy that will result in a wide-range of regional and national societal benefits. This project makes the APLU community engagement information readily accessible to researchers. The collection of application documents will be converted into a coherent, well-structured dataset that is easy to access and conducive to further qualitative and quantitative research explorations. The project identifies broad data trends and types of metrics used by universities to assess engagement. This effort will leverage this rich data to advance our knowledge and understanding, and spur potentially transformative research in university economic engagement.