How One State Accelerated the Academic-Government Research Connection

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ASPA as an organization.

By Katherine Barrett and Richard Greene
January 24, 2025

Over the years, we’ve heard multiple university researchers express frustration about getting research findings into the hands of state managers and decision-makers. At the same time, government officials who could use that research are often unaware it exists—a critical problem given the pressure on governments to back up new initiatives and programs with solid evidence and data.

Differences in culture, timing and communication styles have traditionally stood in the way of solving this problem, which North Carolina enthusiastically tackled through its “Office of Strategic Partnerships (OSP) during the last five years of Governor Roy Cooper’s administration, which ended on January 1.

With the change in administrations and new Governor Josh Stein taking over, the future of OSP is uncertain. Director Jenni Owen has plans to leave at the end of January, but the organization’s structure and its success in building cross-sector research partnerships continue to provide a strong example to North Carolina and other states of how universities, governments and foundations can collaborate effectively.  

A November 2024 report about the “Accomplishments and Impact” of OSP provides multiple comments from universities, executive departments and foundations that back up the idea that OSP’s focus on collaborative research partnerships has been critical. “These projects demonstrate the feasibility of collaboration between internal and external experts and reinforce state government’s commitment to using data and evidence to guide decisions,” said one assistant secretary from the NC Department of Commerce.

When Governor Roy Cooper launched the partnership idea in 2019 with Owen at the helm, she already had a solid idea of the obstacles that stood in the way of better understanding and communication between the North Carolina state government and university researchers.

In an interview with Owen, she described a university meeting that included about 100 faculty members and doctoral students who were involved in public administration and policy fields.

The speaker asked for a show of hands. “How many of you are pursuing or have something on your research agenda that you think has implications for public policy?”

Just about everyone in the room raised a hand

Next question: “How many of you have talked to anybody in government about the topic you’re pursuing or thinking about pursuing from a research perspective?

And one person raised a hand cautiously.

As Owen explained, this experience fit with her previous observations. “People in academia who say they want to have an impact on policy really mean it. And people in government who say they want evidence and data to inform their decisions really mean it. But the way they traditionally each go about doing that is often clunky,”

Both sides contribute to the communication problem. University faculty, lacking knowledge about how government works, don’t know how to reach out, who to reach out to or the best way to time conversations. Meanwhile, state government leaders are short of time, resources and (often) sufficient expertise, which can lead to an absence of clearly thought-out research and data needs early in a project.

To solve these problems, OSP worked on encouraging state department leaders to plan ahead and think more strategically about upcoming research needs. By developing a one-page template, it encouraged departments to spell out desired results, deliverables, data needs, timing and scope for potential upcoming research tasks.

As OSP grew during the pandemic, it developed a project portal that could send those queries out to universities, colleges and community colleges across the state and sometimes beyond. This approach helped bring far more educational institutions into the research mix, so that Duke University and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, both near the capital, did not always dominate research efforts.   It also created a philanthropy liaison position to capture ways in which foundation interests could connect with government projects and university research, thereby freeing up additional funding that helped provide matching dollars to support state program efforts.

At the same time, OSP focused heavily on outreach and communication, publicizing resources and details about the growing number of government, research and philanthropic partnerships, while also running monthly virtual panel sessions through its Monthly Connect series, which brought individuals from varied jobs and backgrounds to discuss issues connected with cross-sector partnerships. Each year, it has also held an annual learning forum to showcase research, government and philanthropy partnerships.

One additional bonus has been the ability of OSP to connect students and government, with the production of a “Directory of Opportunities for Students to Assist State Agencies”. Its work has also led to strengthening the talent pipeline in partnership with the NC Office of State Human Resources.

While it is still an open question as to the form partnership projects will take in a new North Carolina administration, OSP’s success has already generated interest from several other states and local governments and support from local participants. “OSP’s approach to helping meaningful partnerships happen has meant all the difference,” said Tonya Smith-Jackson, provost at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, the largest HBCU (historically Black Colleges and Universities) in the US. “The model that OSP is using for university-government collaboration is the best I’ve seen.”

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Author: Katherine Barrett and Richard Greene are principals at Barrett and Greene, Inc., who research analyze and write about state and local government. In addition to the work they produce on their website at Greenebarrett.com, they are executive advisors to the American Society for Public Administration, advisors to the Government Finance Officers Association, visiting fellows at the IBM Center for the Business of Government and fellows in the National Academy of Public Administration.

 

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