Business-Higher Education Forum Research Articles

The digital dilemma: Winning and losing strategies in the digital talent race

The emergence of a digital economy has changed companies’ business and talent model. However, the gap between supply and demand for digital skills and talent poses a serious dilemma for many companies: do they acquire tech start-ups as a talent strategy or reinvent the company as a tech firm, hire new digital talent and reskill current employees? Recent research on start-up acquisitions and a new report from the US Business–Higher Education Forum and Burning Glass Technologies reframe this dilemma by shedding new light on foundational skills for the digital economy and strategies for acquiring new talent and reskilling employees.

Lessons from the Great Recession

This essay reviews the work of the US Business–Higher Education Forum (BHEF) in data science and analytics and offers a brief review of how BHEF catalysed responses from its academic members to meet the talent needs of its business members, highlighting implications for business and higher education in the future.

Gathering genius in Reno: The 2009 ISEF

There is deep concern about the quality of math and science education in the United States. In these disciplines, the typical U.S. high school student demonstrates low academic achievement compared to peers worldwide. The fraction of U.S. high school students choosing higher education and careers in science and math is low. The Business-Higher Education Forum is concerned about U.S. competitiveness and reports there is a shortage of good, qualified science and math teachers—the U.S. will need roughly 280,000 new science and math teachers by 2015. The picture looks grim.

Reengineering Schools for the 21st Century

MORE THAN 20 years after the publication of A Nation at Risk and half a decade into the new millennium, we seem to be in jeopardy again. Employers and university professors demand certain skills and modes of thinking appropriate for the challenges we face in the 21st century. But policy makers and school bureaucrats are increasingly reverting to an antiquated model of education. If we do not change course now, we will fail an entire generation of children and imperil the nation's future. Thankfully, visionary school leaders are beginning to confront this disconnect between 21st-century expectations and seemingly permanent 19th-century school values and practices. There is a growing consensus among members of the corporate community, university professors, and informed educators regarding the skills needed for success in college and in the marketplace. According to the Business-Higher Education Forum, today's high-performance job market requires graduates to be proficient in such cross-functional skills and attributes as leadership, teamwork, problem solving, and communication, as well as time management, self-management, adaptability, analytical thinking, and global consciousness. (1) A study by 20 of America's most prestigious research universities identified these same and skills as the ones students need not only to gain admission to college but to succeed there. (2) While the study proposes standards for the various academic disciplines, its introduction indicates the proficiencies these standards are meant to develop. Likewise, at the precollege level, educators have articulated locally and nationally a core body of knowledge--what we know students should know. Regardless of the angle of vision, there are remarkable similarities in what experts see. In short, we do not lack clarity about what to teach; rather, we are mired in antiquated thinking about how to teach. More specifically, we need to understand what exercises and experiences best produce proficiency in the skills and attributes that all sides agree are critical. Moreover, legislative mandates (e.g., high-stakes testing) and a slavish allegiance to traditional teaching practices and to specific disciplines of study are diversions that prevent us from devoting serious attention to developing a more global mindset and helping our children acquire the knowledge and skill sets they will need to succeed. A NEW FRAMEWORK FOR SCHOOLS IN THE 21ST CENTURY All over the world, we see examples of schools that are determined to resolve the contradiction between the vision of high-quality education for the 21st century and the reality of current practices. Schools that have dared to experiment are experiencing profound success in redefining what to teach and how to teach. That commitment itself is a 21st-century attitude. How can you recognize a great 21st-century school? Schools for the 21st century will expect proficiency, fluency, multicultural literacy, and high-quality performance by students in a variety of areas. These four hallmarks of a successful school will influence how the school organizes itself, its instructional program, and its assessment system. Students will be promoted according to how well they meet expectations in these areas. Samples of each student's achievements in these four areas will be captured in his or her digital portfolio and will mark progress points at successive stages of learning in a way that does not mean instituting standards of mediocrity that all students are forced to adhere to. Hallmark 1: proficiency. The first hallmark of a successful school for the 21st century will be the proficiency curriculum. In the words of assessment expert Grant Wiggins, a proficiency curriculum will be backward designed so that preferred outcomes dictate program and assessment. A student who is well educated for the 21st century will be technically proficient in * literacy (including reading with comprehension, writing with accuracy and cogency, and speaking in public with confidence and persuasiveness); * numeracy (mathematics skills and reasoning at advanced levels); * empiricism (the scientific method, as applied in scientific inquiry); and * technology (including such tools as computers, digital imaging, laser operations, and robotics). …

The Access 2000 Chicago Partnership

In January 1993, the Access 2000 Partnership received the prestigious Anderson Medal, awarded by the Business–Higher Education Forum of the American Council on Education. The Medal is awarded annually to an ‘exemplary three-way partnership of higher education, local business and public schools working together to improve the performance of American students’. In this article, against the background of the evolution of Access 2000, Eric Hamilton focuses on seven ways in which the business and education communities can cooperate effectively to enhance educational and work opportunities for American students. The benefits for both the business and education sectors are great, he argues, if priority is given to solving major social and economic problems, rather than simply to such short-term advantages as image-warming for industry or cash injections for education.

Establishing Successful Partnerships

Against the background of the cost crisis in US educational institutions and the changing nature of the global economy and international competition, both of which factors are acting as accelerating forces in the establishment and development of industry–higher education partnerships, Don Blandin sets out five key criteria that are fundamental to the evolution of successful partnerships. He then tests these criteria in the context of the efforts of the US Business–Higher Education Forum to establish relationships with and encourage university–industry cooperation in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. The article offers insights into the working of industry–education relationships in general as well as the challenge and opportunity inherent in exchanging experience across political, economic and social cultures.

Cooperation between Business and Higher Education in Poland

This article looks at recent HE–industry links in Poland, paying particular attention to the Enterprise Development Center at Warsaw University of Technology, which has been established to foster links between entrepreneurs and academic research. The article also describes the recent initiative to form a Polish Industry–Universities Forum, developed through cooperation with the US Business Higher Education Forum.

The Think Tank

In January 1992, the Think Tank project received the prestigious Anderson Medal, awarded by the Business-Higher Education Forum of the American Council on Education. The Medal is awarded annually to an ‘exemplary three-way partnership of higher education, local business and public schools working together to improve the performance of American students’. Given their potential impacts on the future graduate flow, workforce, and social health, such partnerships are considered by many to be crucial developments in the formulation of strategies to combat the crisis in education and training. The active participation of the higher education and business partners in such projects are essential to their success. In this article, Paul Elsner and Janet Beauchamp describe the development and current activities of the Think Tank and the contributions of the various partners, and illustrate the many benefits that can accrue from successful collaboration of this kind.

Bridgeport Futures Initiative

In 1987, the city of Bridgeport initiated a city-wide planning process which underscored the needs of the city's youth and provided an honest appraisal of the community's capacity to manage future challenges. Through the support of The Annie E. Casey Foundation, Bridgeport Futures Initiative was established to unite education, business and industry, community organizations and citizens to develop a comprehensive approach for solving the complex problems facing youth in need and at risk. The years since inception have provided rich and compelling evidence that the participation of hundreds of people and many institutions can impact on the lives of young people. This article describes the development of this unique collaboration and gives examples of successes thus achieved. The Bridgeport Futures Initiative was commended in the 1990 Anderson Medal awards of the Business–Higher Education Forum of the American Council on Education (see Industry and Higher Education, June 1991, p 79).

Common ground Lessons for building industry-university alliances

On the occasion of the formation of the European University-Industry Forum, the director of the US Business-Higher Education Forum reflects on lessons learned about business-academic alliances during the first ten years of the American Forum's experiment in collaboration.

The US Business—Higher Education Forum

Ten years ago this year, a group of American academic and corporate chief executives reached out to one another and bridged a gap that had been too wide for too long. They founded the Business-Higher Education Forum. Their goals were to address issues of mutual concern to the corporate and higher education communities and to pool resources for the benefit not only of their two sectors, but of society in general.

The Business-Higher Education Forum

The Business-Higher Education Forum

Academic Industrial Cooperation: A View of the Future

The manner in which scientific research is conducted in the United States must change somewhat if we are to remain competitive in the future. The concept of universities devoted primarily to education and the pursuit of pure science while industries independently define and develop the applications is inconsistent with the increasingly competitive foreign technological challenges and the mounting budgetary problems of higher education. This was a basic conclusion of a recently released report on Corporate and Campus Cooperation: An Action Agenda, prepared by the Business-Higher Education forum comprised of a number of educational and industrial leaders. The report suggested that closer academic-industrial cooperation could be mutually beneficial and that the industries themselves should assume an increased financial role in funding certain academic studies. In the United States, the NSF has tried in recent years to stimulate such cooperation by providing funding for a number of joint industrialacademic ventures under the Industry/ University Cooperative Research Program. I will describe here, in some detail, the results of one such successful program, jointly defined and executed by IBM and the Chemistry Department of the University of Utah which led to the development of new resist materials capable of providing improved, high resolution, optical lithography, in hopes that the result will serve to stimulate other such cooperative ventures in the future. In the electronics industry, resists are employed as radiation sensitive materials for the fabrication of the high resolution patterns present in electronic devices (integrated Circuits, logic and memory chips, etc.) The drive toward higher density circuitry in microelectronic devices has promoted interest in a variety of lithographic techniques designed to provide higher resolution then currently possible using conventional tools which accomplish the resist exposure utilizing radiation in the 350-450 nm region. In this regard it has recently been demonstrated that the resolution obtainable using a 1:1 optical projection printer can be significantly improved by the use of light or shorter wavelength (e.g., 310 nm) for the exposure. With regard to realizing the im-