Congress and the NIH should target a significant share of increases in federal research funding to university programs that partner with industry.

Industry-university partnerships not only spur more commercialization and innovation, they also boost STEM education outcomes. But these partnerships are the exception rather than the rule. To change this, federal agencies should require industry co-funding of many academic research centers, including all the NSF Engineering Research Centers. In addition, Congress should allocate funding for a tripling of NSF’s Industry/University Cooperative Research Center (I/UCRC) program, to $21 million dollars. NIH should examine the NSF model and propose an equivalent program to Congress.