From the desk of the VPR: Advancing strategic corporate partnerships
As we develop, refine, and deploy this process, leadership and implementation teams are established to identify companies of highest strategic interest, align mutual goals and competencies, and advance engagement strategies that align with the needs of both the corporate partner and the university.
The partnerships generated through this process are designed to be long-term and lasting, and they are structured to help our corporate partners more appropriately engage the knowledge and assets of a 21st-century land-grant university. By enhancing collaboration and leveraging complementary capabilities in a holistic fashion, we anticipate that these relationships will allow for greater economic returns to our strategic partners while enhancing the university’s mission of creating and transferring knowledge into the marketplace through innovation, talent development, and professional training.
By deploying a coordinated strategic partner planning process, we anticipate that the university will be able to create approximately eight to ten truly strategic private sector global partnerships by 2025. These partnerships are expected to:
Increase the transition velocity of transformational knowledge and technology into the global marketplace;
Provide for greater student interaction and employment opportunities, both while on campus and after graduation, with sector-leading companies across a spectrum of industries;
Create tangible economic value by addressing complex current and future global technological challenges;
Enhance appropriate university economic returns in the form of sponsored research, intellectual property royalties and equity, professional training programming, and enhancement of philanthropic giving;
Advance the economic growth interests of Kansas companies via transformational innovation; and
Advance local economic growth through company attraction near the university’s three campuses.
I would like to extend my thanks to the leadership within the College of Agriculture and our various stakeholder groups mentioned above for the efforts they have undertaken in the last several years as they have worked to pilot and refine this process. We are already seeing tangible results from their efforts, and I look forward to engaging with the broader university community as we work to deploy the process across campus.
