Lawmakers told university economic development a good investment for Iowa

DES MOINES - Regents university representatives are emphasizing their collaboration and cooperation in helping turn the ideas of Iowans into products, services and job opportunities.

'We only compete on the athletic field,” Daniel Reed, vice president for research and development at the University of Iowa, told the Economic Development Appropriations Subcommittee on Wednesday.

Reed, Randy Pilkington of the University of Northern Iowa's Business and Community Services, and Lisa Lorenzen of the Iowa State University Research Foundation, also told the lawmakers Iowans are getting a strong return on their investment in the universities' economic development programs.

'We think we've been a good investment for the state,” Pilkington said. At UNI, 'we leverage $5 in private grants, fees and federal funding for every $1 from state.”

His colleagues reported leveraging state funds in similar ways and warned that in some cases reducing state funds would decrease their ability to draw down federal funds.

With $1.037 million in state funds, the ISU Small Business Development Centers leveraged $1.048 million in federal funds and $1.046 million in local funds, Lorenzen said. That allowed the centers to assist 4,442 clients in 99 counties with 279 new business starts and the creation of 1,689 jobs.

Reed, who noted that 80 percent of UI start-ups are in the biomedical field, said the university is trying to increase opportunities from ideas to prototypes to businesses not only at its research park but on campus.

'They want to be entrepreneurs between classes,” he said, so UI has developed space for students and faculty closer to the classroom where they can work on their ideas.

The business development efforts are closely tied to workforce issues, the university representatives said. Rather than look at a college education as preparation for a 40-year or longer career, Reed said that because of the pace of change, universities are preparing students for their first job and maybe their second.

As employers look for workers with higher skills, Iowa needs to upgrade its workforce, especially those with no more than a high school education.

'It's a huge issue given the population dynamics of Iowa,” Reed said. Automation, not only in blue-collar jobs, but in white-collar jobs as artificial intelligence is developed, will cause 'huge disruption.”

'We need to retrain existing workers and hang on to a disproportionate number of Iowans and those who come to Iowa for education” to meet future workforce needs, he said.

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