When asked how to build a great city, the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan said, “Create a great university and wait 200 years.” Indeed, America’s network of research universities is one of its greatest sources of talent, entrepreneurship, and research and development—three inputs that in combination can fuel prosperity in the regions that surround those universities. Yet, while most strong regional economies have a leading research university, the reverse is not always true. That is because the link between university research, commercialization, and broader regional development is neither automatic nor immediate.
