Business partners: how Indiana universities work with business and economic development.

AuthorKaelble, Steve
PositionEDUCATION

The primary mission of a university may be to educate students and conduct research, but higher education more than ever is getting involved in the business of business. Public and private institutions alike are involving themselves in local economic-development efforts and expanding their business-development and -assistance services.

Kyle Salyers, executive director of Indiana University's Advancing Indiana initiative, sums up the philosophy shared by his institution and others across the state. "We believe that every corner of the university has the ability and the responsibility to contribute to the economic prosperity of the state of Indiana."

"It's everybody's business," agrees Elaine Fisher, director of the Office of Building Better Communities at Ball State University in Muncie. "Everybody is doing economic development in one way or another."

Giving universities a seat at the development table is recognition of their importance to the state's economic health, observes Bill Hunt, the former Arvin CEO who serves as volunteer chairman of IU's Advancing Indiana project. "Higher education--both public and private--is our biggest single asset," he says. "For our state to support top 20 public universities is a wonderful thing, and we have great private institutions as well."

The business-development and economic-development contributions of universities take countless forms, including initiatives to help communities plan for development and lure new businesses, programs to transfer university technology to Indiana companies that can bring it to market, plans to launch and incubate new Indiana companies, and efforts to educate students in industries that state officials are promoting. Institutions of all types and sizes are in on the game, from Indiana's large public research universities to smaller, private institutions.

Advancing Indiana. "A lot of what we're trying to do is convert intellectual property into new companies that stay in Indiana and employ Indiana people," Hunt says of IU's economic-development efforts, which were pushed to the front burner following a speech IU President Adam Herbert gave to the Economic Club of Indianapolis two years ago. "Advancing Indiana is a means of supporting the already substantial efforts of the university."

IU's efforts take place on all of its campuses statewide. Among the most prominent lately is the work of the IU Research & Technology Corp., headquartered near the Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis campus. The non-profit agency oversees the university's intellectual property and helps find ways to bring it to market, says Mark Long, president and CEO of the IURTC. Among other things, the organization operates a business incubator along the downtown Indianapolis canal that is home to nearly two dozen fledgling companies and technology-focused organizations.

It's an increasingly busy operation. "We're looking at expanding our facility and even adding another facility," Long...

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