Science and the Entrepreneurial University: Research Universities Have Been Key in Driving the U.S. Economy. Keeping Their Engines Revving Will Require Facing Some Critical Challenges (The ENTREPRENEURIAL University) (Report‪)‬

During the second half of the 20th century, research universities in the United States remade themselves into an important engine of the modern economy. Everyone has heard of the technological miracles wrought by Silicon Valley in California and Route 128 in Massachusetts. Less well known is that high-technology activity, much of it stimulated by research institutions, is estimated to account for 65% of the difference in economic growth among U.S. metropolitan regions, according to a new book by sociologist Jonathan R. Cole of Columbia University, The Great American University: Its Rise to Preeminence, Its Indispensable National Role, Why It Must Be Protected. Further, 80% of leading new industries may derive from university-based research. Although research universities represent only a small fraction of the higher-education system--fewer than 200 of over 4,000 postsecondary institutions--they are now recognized as essential to U.S. economic leadership. Yet this is not a moment for self-congratulation. The U.S. economy is beset with difficulties, and as a result universities, especially public universities, are experiencing a painful disequilibrium of their own. Today's climate of economic dislocation is reinforcing the pressures on research universities to play a more direct and active role in fostering innovation than ever before. Can they do it? The short answer is a conditional yes. But the nation faces several key challenges in making that happen.