University-Industry Engagement outside Major Metropolitan Areas and Megacities: Identifying Issues and Finding Solutions

University Of Arkansas, Fayetteville AR

Investigators

Abstract

A myriad of engagement opportunities between universities and companies exists across a partnership continuum, including research collaboration, technology commercialization, curriculum support, internships, and jobs. While relationships between companies and universities in metropolitan areas are stellar examples of robust innovation ecosystems that easily foster university-industry partnerships, many universities and companies in non-metropolitan areas struggle to create equivalent ecosystems. Numerous research-intensive universities are located outside metropolitan areas. Engagement between these institutions and industry is of equal importance, as their economic, educational, and social impacts in local communities and states are especially pronounced. Metropolitan regions possess innate assets that are unavailable to non-metropolitan areas; however, valuable and translatable lessons from metropolitan models can be mirrored in non-metropolitan areas to stimulate creation and growth of innovation and economic ecosystems. Non-metropolitan regions and institutions also possess unique attributes and research opportunities that can be leveraged to grow and establish relationships with companies and enhance the economic ecosystem in the region and state. This National Science Foundation supported workshop will promote a national discussion on strategies that universities and companies can design and implement to encourage partnerships with and between institutions and industry, specifically when one or both parties are located and operate outside metropolitan areas. The University of Arkansas, in collaboration with the University-Industry Demonstration Partnership, will organize a three-day forum in Fayetteville, Arkansas, for universities and companies outside major metropolitan areas to consider how to develop and grow strong industry engagement programs to bolster local and state innovation ecosystems. The workshop will leverage diverse experts and recruit attendees from metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas across the United States to participate in discussions about practical approaches that can be used by academic, corporate, government, and nonprofit groups in a community. Attendees will assess existing national models, brainstorm new programs and ideas, and develop steps that can be taken to improve academic-corporate engagement in non-metropolitan regions and support collaborations with the objectives of advancing university missions (teaching, research, service, and economic development), company goals, and local and state economies. Topics for discussion include existing national programs that universities and companies can use as a basis for research collaboration that can lead to economic development at the regional, state, and national levels; successful (and not so successful) strategies for university-industry engagement; strengthening graduate and undergraduate research; technology commercialization; career development and workforce pipelines; global competitiveness and influence; and the importance of diversity and inclusion in innovation teams. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.