As the U.S. continues to embrace a comprehensive plan for economic recovery, this article investigates the validity of the claim that investing in higher education will help restore state economic growth and prosperity. It presents the findings from a study that indicates that the most consistent predictors of state economic growth related to…

American research universities are arguably the world's most powerful engines of innovation and discovery. Yet they are widely misunderstood and in danger of losing their capacity to drive economic progress and improve our lives. Jonathan Cole, John Mitchell Mason University Professor at Columbia University, notes that the preeminence of American…

Big ideas for the future is a joint report by Universities UK and Research Councils UK, published as part of the second annual Universities Week campaign. This new report explores the excellent research taking place in UK higher education today and what it will mean for us in 20 years' time. It demonstrates the value of public investment in higher…

The National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) is the U.S. Government's crosscutting program that coordinates Federal research and development (R&D) activities in nanoscale science, engineering, technology, and related efforts among various participating agencies. The Federal Government launched the NNI in FY 2001 with an initial $500 million…

On October 30, 2006, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and the Midwest Higher Education Compact held a conference on higher education and economic growth. Speakers included Michael Moskow, Richard Lester, Michael Luger, Sean Safford, Larry Isaak, Stefanie Lenway, Rod Shrader, Brian Fabes, Arthur Rothkopf, Randy Eberts, Gary Fethke, Victor…

Academic research institutions have long been important economic anchors for New York City. They provide thousands of jobs and serve as a magnet for talented students and faculty, who inject hundreds of millions of dollars into the local economy through federal research grants. Yet, even though New York's concentration of top-fight scientific…

This article examines from an economic perspective the ways in which Open Educational Resources (OER) can be linked to economic growth, equality of access to knowledge, and the improvement of teaching and learning. In leading economies, technology and knowledge are the critical factors of economic growth, which is a significant shift from the…

Not all observers agree that higher education and economic growth are obvious or necessary complements to each other. The controversy may be exacerbated because of the difficulty of measuring the exact contribution of colleges and universities to economic growth. Recognizing that a model based on local conditions and higher education's response…

Discusses three main ways New England's institutions of higher education can help secure the region's strong position in the "new economy": (1) educating a skilled workforce for the twenty-first century; (2) capturing and effectively utilizing research and development funding; and (3) helping provide economic opportunity for all…

Mass Insight Corp, a public policy and communications firm that organizes public-private initiatives to support economic growth in Massachusetts, recently issued a new report, titled "An Economy at Risk," making the case for a Massachusetts economic development strategy organized around higher education and science and technology.…

This report summarizes the findings of a study which used traditional input-output economic models merged with recent understandings of new growth theory to measure and assess both the static and dynamic economic impact of university research, especially in Canada. The study highlights were: (1) university research is a powerful stimulus for…