Innovation And Prosperity Amidst The Covid-19 Pandemic: Universities And Our Economic Future

The Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU) is one of the presidential higher education organizations representing public research universities in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Consisting of approximately 250 institutions and systems of higher learning, APLU members are involved in a variety of research, policy-making, and advocacy efforts designed to strengthen and advance the three main components of the public university mission: increasing degree completion and academic success, advancing scientific research, and expanding engagement.

In 2013, APLU began awarding the Innovation and Economic Prosperity (IEP) designation to universities that had “demonstrated a meaningful, substantial, and sustainable commitment to university economic engagement” with the communities they serve. Institutions of higher learning undergo an intensive assessment process and, if they receive a positive review from the program review panel, are given the IEP designation.

The IEP designation is based on a set of metrics described as “four simple ideas”: know, measure, tell, and engage. That is, economic engagement activities are thought to have meaningful impact when universities know what they do well and what they need to improve on, when they measure their engagement levels, and when they are able to tell the story of their economic contributions. Universities are then better positioned to engage collaboratively with their campus and communities stakeholders to promote economic prosperity. To date, only 66 universities have earned the IEP designation by demonstrating sufficient commitment to economic development through university-community partnerships.

The Covid-19 pandemic has profoundly impacted the financial circumstances of communities across the nation. Are these “four simple ideas” from the IEP designation making a difference in terms of innovation and recovery from the economic damages wrought by this public health crisis? Absolutely, says Shalin Jyotishi, APLU’s Assistant Director of Economic Development and Community Engagement. Mr. Jyotishi, who oversees the IEP designation process, has been tracking many of the stories emerging out of universities in recent weeks. “It’s no small feat for a university to implement a comprehensive strategy for maximizing its economic and societal impact. Nearly all IEP designees have leveraged our ‘Economic Engagement Framework’ to achieve this goal. Whether it’s to educate a 21^st century workforce, foster innovation ecosystems, or support resilient communities, IEP designees leverage the framework to strengthen how they support the regions they serve.”

Kansas State University provides one example of how this sort of work is getting done in the age of coronavirus. This land-grant university has been portrayed as a leader in the battle against pandemics, largely because of the Biosecurity Research Institute it houses. Activities surrounding the IEP designation already had connected experts in biosecurity, food security, and infectious disease prevention with the Manhattan, Kansas business community, dubbed “the Silicon Valley of Biodefense” by former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle. Now, these university-community partnerships are beginning to yield licensed technology surrounding treatments for Covid-19 that currently are in preclinical and clinical trials.

Peter K. Dorhout, vice president for research at K-State, notes that his university’s use of the IEP process in response to the pandemic goes beyond direct medical treatment. “Vaccines and treatments are one dimension of how we can impact the current situation, but ensuring adequate and safe food supplies is an additional dimension of our engagement. Whether through community pandemic planning and training developed by our National Agricultural Biosecurity Center or through engagement with the meat packing industries and cattle and hog producers through our Extension offices to help prevent food shortages when COVID-19 closes local processing facilities, K-State talent is assisting in stabilizing the state’s multi-billion dollar agriculture economy.”

Another example is the work being done through the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Again, work accomplished to achieve the IEP designation had put into place a variety of partnerships that allowed university personnel to quickly respond to the needs of communities battling the Covid-19 pandemic. This includes the manufacturing of personal protective equipment (PPE), which not only has connected faculty and staff with collaborators in the business community and UNC Health System, but also with colleagues at other universities such as Duke and North Carolina State University (another IEP designee).

“Universities excel at research and generating new knowledge and discoveries, but they aren’t traditionally positioned to manufacture products and get them into the market,” said Michelle Bolas, associate vice chancellor of innovation strategy and programs. “Because UNC-Chapel Hill had already engaged in the IEP process, we had a strategy and data-driven framework in place before the pandemic hit that allowed us to support the programs who were ready to assist, activate partnerships, and ramp up in-house manufacturing of PPE in just a few weeks. The data systems that we’ve strengthened because of the IEP process give us real-time impact metrics that show Carolina’s response to the needs of our state’s health care providers.”

The final chapter on the economic consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic is far from being written. The story line at present indicates much more pain ahead. That said, those universities centrally involved in these sorts of innovation and economic prosperity activities clearly will be authoring some of the more positive passages within this narrative.