Economic Forum Live Blog

Thank you for join­ing us at the UNM Eco­nomic Devel­op­ment Sum­mit today. Book­mark this spot. We will fol­low up as UNM tries to make this more concrete.

3. One research paper, “A New Par­a­digm for Eco­nomic Devel­op­ment: How Higher Edu­ca­tion Insti­tu­tions are Work­ing to Revi­tal­ize Their Regional and State Economies” by David F. Shaf­fer and David J. Wright dis­cusses a 2006 study done for the U.S. Depart­ment of Com­merce by the State Sci­ence and Tech­nol­ogy Insti­tute found that uni­ver­si­ties that had been suc­cess­ful in “launch­ing and sup­port­ing knowl­edge economies” shared most or all of the fol­low­ing char­ac­ter­is­tics:
• Research lead­er­ship in area of inquiry rel­e­vant to their par­tic­u­lar regional economies.
• A “cadre” of nation­ally promi­nent fac­ulty.
• Lead­er­ship that sees eco­nomic growth as a pri­or­ity, and that links effec­tively with busi­ness lead­er­ship in pur­suit of that objec­tive.
• The phys­i­cal infra­struc­ture needed to sup­port research and tech­nol­ogy devel­op­ment – labs, equip­ment, class­rooms, research parks, con­fer­ence facil­i­ties.
• And the pol­i­tics and legal flex­i­bil­ity needed to facil­i­tate the com­mer­cial­iza­tion of research outcomes.

4. This paper, “A New Par­a­digm for Eco­nomic Devel­op­ment: How Higher Edu­ca­tion Insti­tu­tions are Work­ing to Revi­tal­ize Their Regional and State Economies” has some nice case stud­ies that demon­strate how research uni­ver­si­ties and com­mu­nity col­leges can work together to fill dif­fer­ent parts of a mutual goal. One way for states that are not com­pet­i­tive in the sit­ing of new major com­pa­nies from out­side the state is for state lead­ers to give pri­or­ity to “grow­ing our own.” That means strength­en­ing exist­ing busi­nesses and spawn­ing new ones.
5. What are the basic ele­ments needed to make cities thrive? In one of sev­eral back­ground papers for the UNM Eco­nomic Devel­op­ment Con­fer­ence, Tom Mur­phy a Sr. Res­i­dent Fel­low for the ULI Kling­beil Fam­ily Chair for Urban Devel­op­ment lays it out.
• Clean­li­ness and safety “Effi­cient deliv­ery of basic ser­vices, includ­ing secu­rity, clean­li­ness and basic com­pe­tency in gov­ern­ment is essen­tial.”
• An edu­cated work­force “Beside pro­vid­ing for safety, the sin­gle most impor­tant ser­vice
That gov­ern­ments can offer in part­ner­ship with other insti­tu­tions is edu­ca­tion.
• Cost of liv­ing and qual­ity of life “In addi­tion to the avail­abil­ity and skill set of the local work­force, the under­ly­ing cost of liv­ing plays a role in encour­ag­ing new busi­ness and inno­va­tion.
Read more about what makes cities work in Build­ing on Inno­va­tion – The Sig­nif­i­cance of Anchor Insti­tu­tions in a New Era of City Building.

David Hardy — AFRL, Space Vehi­cles Directorate

We need to increase our work­force diver­sity in the sci­ence and engi­neer­ing fields. UNM can play a strong part in this. The UNM nanosat pro­gram is impor­tant. He thinks Michi­gan Tech is a good model to replicate.

Paul Hom­mert — SNL

We are work­ing much more closely with a num­ber of dif­fer­ent UNM depart­ments and schools and we are now inter­ested in work­ing more with cyber­se­cu­rity. There will be much more oppor­tu­nity for col­lab­o­ra­tions in the future.

Col. Bill Coo­ley, Phillips Research Site and Materiel Wing Direc­tor
Believes this sum­mit and talk­ing about how to break down research labs and aca­d­e­mic bar­ri­ers is an excel­lent step for Albu­querque, but the bar­ri­ers need to be bro­ken down quickly. He says his orga­ni­za­tion will prob­a­bly see less money in the future, no mat­ter what hap­pens with seques­tra­tion, so it is more impor­tant than ever to develop bet­ter bridges into the research universities.

National Labs Panel
Richard Mar­quez — LANL Exec­u­tive Direc­tor
The poten­tial for seques­tra­tion is more bad news. But they feel they can han­dle it within their current plan.

Larry Sklar dis­cusses research from a fac­ulty point of view. As a fac­ulty mem­ber he has worked to com­mer­cial­ize his patents because he sees the ben­e­fit to the com­mu­nity — and the thrill of going from drug dis­cov­ery to application.

Rain­for­est in the Desert Panel
Lisa Kuut­tila — STC.UNM Pres­i­dent and CEO, mod­er­a­tor
Larry Sklar — Direc­tor and CEO UNM Cen­ter for Mol­e­c­u­lar Dis­cov­ery
R. Terry Dun­lay — Pres­i­dent & CEO Intel­l­i­Cyt Cor­po­ra­tion
Michael Schae­fer — Man­ag­ing Direc­tor NM Com­mu­nity Capital

Roots before branches. Nur­ture the roots and allow growth of the economy.

Hwang says in the right cir­cum­stances trust can become a free flow­ing cur­rency. Peo­ple learn the behav­ior by doing it. So con­fer­ences like this are a good start, but what mat­ters is what comes from it.

NM Tech Pres­i­dent Lopez says they are look­ing at increas­ing their aca­d­e­mic sup­port for Cyber­se­cu­rity because India has a great demand for that exper­tise and NM Tech is inter­ested in attract­ing grad­u­ate stu­dents for UNM.

UNM Pres­i­dent Frank says UNM is talk­ing about the need for the Col­lege of Pub­lic Health — with grad­u­ate degrees offered.

NM Tech Pres­i­dent Dan Lopez says many of his stu­dents want to start their own busi­nesses. They want to become part of the busi­ness com­mu­nity rather than work­ing for oth­ers. Other stu­dents want to focus on research — to cre­ate and innovate.

Albu­querque Mayor R.J. Berry says NM has a pipeline of post­grad­u­ate tal­ent — and wants the con­ver­sa­tion among uni­ver­si­ties and busi­ness peo­ple to con­tinue in the weeks to come. He wants to hear more about what he should be doing for eco­nomic development.

Gov­er­nor Susanna Mar­tinez has taken the podium and con­grat­u­lates Pres­i­dent Frank for open­ing the dis­cus­sion about the role of research uni­ver­si­ties in eco­nomic devel­op­ment. She says NM needs to reeval­u­ate the way we do busi­ness.
Does New Mex­ico have a wel­come mat or no tres­pass­ing sign for business?