Emily Stover DeRocco Speech
Association of University Research Parks
March 2, 2006
Washington, DC
Thank you, Peter. It is a pleasure to be a part of such of a distinguished panel. There have been a lot of exciting events in Washington over the last several weeks impacting research universities and I’d like to share with you a couple of them.
One month ago in his State of the Union address, President Bush announced a new agenda for the nation’s economy called the American Competitiveness Initiative. It is a series of actions designed to ensure our country’s ability to compete in the global economy for the foreseeable future.
The Competitiveness Agenda is grounded in the understanding that innovation is the key to America’s competitive advantage. It starts with a recognition that the innovation process begins with research and development most often found at universities. Breakthroughs discovered there can then be spun out to entrepreneurs who design a business model based on their application in the marketplace. This in-turn leads to job creation across a full spectrum of disciplines in support of these new applications and companies.
While the innovation to job creation flow chart is simple to describe, it takes for granted the most critical ingredient – human capital. That is why the major components of the President’s Competitiveness Initiative are focused on developing and retaining the talent required to fuel the innovation process.
These components include an increased focus on math and science in high school through AP and Baccalaureate programs, expanded teaching options and incentives for professionals in the math and engineering fields, and reformed immigration policies to attract the best and brightest from around the world to the United States.
It also includes a proposal to transform our $14 billion job training system from a series of uncoordinated and bureaucratic programs into an education assistance program modeled after Pell Grants and called Career Advancement Accounts. These Accounts would be available to the full range of individuals seeking to gain the skills needed to compete in today’s global economy.
While much of the Competitiveness Initiative strives for national results, it is actually at the regional level where solutions must be developed and the challenge of global competition met. It is in regional economies where companies, workers, researchers, entrepreneurs and governments come together to create competitive advantage and where new ideas and new knowledge are transformed into advanced, high-quality products or services. In other words, it is in regions where innovation occurs.
And that is why we are focusing our talent development in regional economies through the Workforce Innovation in Regional Economic Development Initiative. WIRED is a new initiative designed to demonstrate how talent development can drive the transformation of regional economies and the systems
that support those economies. Immediately following the State of the Union, thirteen regions out of 97 proposals were selected to participate in the WIRED national demonstration, and each will receive $15 million over three years to facilitate that transformation.
The partnerships that form the basis of the WIRED Initiative include universities, community colleges, K-12 educators, businesses, economic development organizations, investors, foundations, and workforce development programs. In short, they include all the organizations that contribute to and support the innovation process at the regional level.
In several of these regions, universities have taken the lead in forming and driving winning partnerships.
In Upstate New York, the Finger Lakes Partnership formed around the two leading institutions: The University of Rochester and Rochester Institute of Technology. Together, they are helping to transform a manufacturing economy dependent on Kodak and Xerox into an innovation economy driven by photonics and optics. This is a textbook example of a region gathering its organizations together and creating an economic development plan that builds on its strengths.
While Rochester and the surrounding region have struggled with the transformation from manufacturing, no one has been harder hit than Michigan. Flint, Lansing, and Saginaw used to form the Golden Triangle of General Motors. Now, barely a week passes without another story about a GM or Delphi plant closing its doors. Yet, amidst this economic upheaval, Michigan State University has taken the lead in the research and application of alternative fuels and has brought together a coalition across the former Golden Triangle to begin a renaissance of the state’s economy and build a new job base competitive in the global economy.
And finally, in North Central Indiana, it is Purdue University who has taken charge, leading the effort not only to transform the economy through entrepreneurship, but to ensure that the region’s secondary schools provide the area’s youth the education to benefit from this transformation and contribute to its growth.
These are just some of the examples of how universities are contributing to our WIRED Initiative and to the President’s Competitiveness Agenda. But they are also examples of how universities are no longer sequestered in ivory towers. Instead they are seeing themselves as an integral player in the regional economy. This is also true of other R&D facilities like the national labs in New Mexico and California, where they are working with economic development organizations to spin out new technologies and to recruit talented and skilled workers to the region.
As you can no doubt tell, I am excited about the possibilities that come when universities invest in and lead regional economies and regional economic development.
