The New Value Proposition for Higher Education

Grace O’Sullivan, Vice President of Corporate Engagement and Strategic Partnerships, looks ahead to the evolving role of universities. She argues that partnerships are key to keeping higher education relevant — bridging research, policy, and workforce needs. Grace shares how collaboration builds public trust and accelerates innovation at scale.

Yeah, I think industry partnerships are very important, especially during this time, because the voice of the business community saying that they need us is really key. I think having that third party validator of what we do and what we're producing is incredibly important. I think policymakers really pay attention to where the industry innovators need to go and what they need to succeed, because we always want to be growing as a society, as an economy.

And who's doing a lot of that are the titans of industry. And for them to really lean on university, for talent, for research, for other innovations, we need those advocates for us and to get them to advocate for us. We need to be delivering value to them. And I think that's where partnerships are so important, because then you really get to know what are the needs of these industry partners and how can we better serve all of our community members.

So I think having that input and really that close feedback loop about what's needed, how are we addressing those needs? If we're not, how can we do better? That type of trust and feedback is key so that we can ensure that whatever we're producing, whether it's research and innovations or people that they're, you know, prepared to go out there and meet that need if they're underprepared, if we're not solving the problems of society, then we're not doing a good job, and we just need to work on identifying that gap and trying to close it as much as we can.