The IPL newsletter: Volume 18, Issue 373

Deep Internationalization and Infrastructure

Kris Olds, Inside Higher Ed
Over the last several years, it has been interesting to see the development of some new and relatively deep collaborative models of institutional (or ‘commercial,’ using GATS parlance) presence in territories outside of universities’ main campuses. These new models tend to be research- and graduate or professional education-oriented, with relatively strong interdisciplinary inclinations. These new models are formal joint ventures (in full, or in a significant way) vs stand-alone branch campuses; they involve significant medium-term commitment and investment; they are associated with the development of new purpose-designed buildings and broader institutional infrastructure; they involve the creation of new governance and organizational structures; they involve a concerted effort to produce innovative forms of new knowledge, impact, and sometimes service; and they are located in global cities. Kris Olds explores why this relatively deep form of internationalization has emerged and how it has fueled the development of new forms of higher education infrastructure.

Industry Funding of University Research: Which States Lead?

Robert D. Atkinson, ITIF
Industry funding of university research is an important component of U.S. academic research and industrial innovation, especially as federal funding for universities continues to decline and companies cut back on basic, intramural research. However, U.S. states vary dramatically on the extent to which their research universities attract industry support. In part, this is because of policy and administrative choices states and universities make. All states, but especially the laggards, would benefit from policies to attract more industry research funding, particularly as such funding appears to generate technology-based economic activity at the state level.

Mentoring in Startup Ecosystems

Jeffrey Sanchez-Burks, et al. 
Effective mentoring programs are very difficult to structure and execute, even with the best intentions and reasonable budget. This report conducts a multi-institution empirical analysis of mentoring in startup ecosystems to determine what helps entrepreneurial teams and mentors thrive in mentorship programs. It surveys the perspectives of mentees, mentors and university and accelerator program administrators. The empirical findings reveal that personality and the malleability of entrepreneurial skills among the mentee and the mentor matter. Further, the report finds that university programs lag behind non-university accelerator programs along several important dimensions when it comes to matching mentees to mentors and providing support during the program and following up after the completion of the program. The report provides several prescriptive recommendations for students, startup founders, mentors and program administrators, and outline a research agenda for studying mentoring in entrepreneurial ecosystems.

Survey of State Government Research and Development 

National Science Foundation (NSF)
The Survey of State Government Research and Development measures the extent of R&D activity performed and funded by the governments of each of the nation’s 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico (collectively, states). By employing consistent, uniform definitions and collection techniques, the survey allows collection of state R&D expenditures data that are comparable nationwide. The survey is a census of state government departments, agencies, commissions, public authorities, and dependent entities with R&D activities.

Change in Urban Concentration and Economic Growth

Susanne A. Frick and Andres Rodriguez-Pose, Centre for Economic Policy Research
The paper investigates (1) the evolution of urban concentration from 1985 to 2010 in 68 countries around the world and (2) the extent to which the degree of urban concentration affects national economic growth. It aims to overcome the limitations of existing empirical literature by building a new urban population dataset that allows the construction of a set of Herfindahl-Hirschman-Indices which capture a country’s urban structure in a more nuanced way than the indicators used hitherto. We find that, contrary to the general perception, urban concentration levels have on average decreased or remained stable (depending on indicator). However, these averages camouflage diverging trends across countries. The results of the econometric analysis suggest that there is no uniform relationship between urban concentration and economic growth. Urban concentration is beneficial for economic growth in high-income countries, while this effect does not hold for developing countries. The results differ from previous analyses that generally underscore the benefits of urban concentration at low levels of economic development. The results are robust to accounting for reverse causality through IV analysis, using exogenous geographic factors as instruments.

Top-Ranked Metros for R&D Intensity

SSTI Weekly Digest
The growth and intensity of higher education R&D (HERD) expenditures varies considerably across metropolitan areas, this recent SSTI analysis of National Science Foundation data finds. New York ($4.3 billion), Boston ($3.2 billion), and Baltimore ($2.9 billion) had the highest overall levels of HERD expenditures in 2016. In that same year, Ithaca, New York (19.1 percent), State College, Pennsylvania (9.5 percent), and College Station, Texas (9.4 percent) had the highest levels of HERD intensity – measured as the share of HERD expenditures to gross metropolitan product. While overall HERD expenditures increased by nearly $7.5 billion nationwide from 2011 to 2016, more than half of this total (50.6 percent) went to the 10 metro areas with the most HERD expenditures in 2016. This analysis uses data from the National Science Foundation’s Higher Education Research and Development (HERD) Survey.