Change at Universities- The BP Story at Illinois

Lisa Hanna
Vice President, Communications
Council on Competitiveness
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202-383-9507

Change at Universities- The BP Story at Illinois
Richard Herman, Professor of Educational Policy and Organizational Leadership, Professor of Mathematics, University of Illinois
Charles Zukoski, Provost and Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering, University at Buffalo

In 1996, the Council on Competitiveness published a study entitled Endless Frontier, Limited Resources with the significant subtitle, U.S. R&D Policy for Competitiveness, based on the fact that "a new paradigm of R&D partnerships is emerging based on the collaboration rather than the separation of key participants in the R&D enterprise".

There were in-depth assessments of six industry sectors essential to U.S. competitiveness. Energy was not one of them. Had the report been written now or even 5 years ago, energy surely would have been included.

Of importance to the nation is the call in the Council on Competitiveness report for stronger university-industry ties and the subsequent emergence of energy as an area where partnerships can lead to a stronger economy. We continue to believe that these kinds of partnerships, among universities and between universities and the private sector, are essential to solving large scale societal problems. Even though universities will continue to compete with each other, the talent to address such problems is less and less likely to be located at one university and the private sector has much to add in this regard.

The following is the story of one such partnership among the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, UC Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley Lab and BP to study the use of biological processes to produce valuable molecules. While this particular agreement was indeed complicated, it is our opinion that touted difficulties of working with American universities are vastly overblown and that it is more a matter of aligning goals early on.

This is also a story of a culture that changed organically over a period of a decade (and in reality longer), which, while provoked from a number of quarters, was ultimately successful because of the need for partnerships and the topical areas were championed by the faculty.

This was shared governance at its best. Success was not preordained. There were numerous possibilities for programs and policy changes to lead to dead ends.  However, in looking back, one can see how affirming that the principles of original land-grant mission need to be incorporated into the entire university-not just agriculture-positioned Illinois to compete for what was one of the largest university-industry partnerships.

Click here to read the full document.

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ABOUT THE COUNCIL ON COMPETITIVENESS

The Council on Competitiveness is the only group of corporate CEOs, university presidents and labor leaders committed to the future prosperity of all Americans and enhanced U.S. competitiveness in the global economy through the creation of high-value economic activity in the United States. The Council is a non-partisan and non-governmental organization.