APLU names UNM as a 2024 Innovation & Economic Prosperity Awards winner

The Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) named the winners of its 12th annual Innovation & Economic Prosperity (IEP) Awards and five new IEP University designees as part of its annual meeting in Orlando, Fla. recently. The awards recognize innovative projects or programs in economic engagement.

APLU's IEP Universities designation program helps higher education institutions codify, elevate, and advance their enterprise supporting economic and community development while providing national recognition to institutions committed to university economic development. To earn the designation, institutions complete a rigorous self-study and stakeholder engagement process. They also identify their economic development strengths and areas of growth and improvement.

"Public universities are major drivers of economic growth through their talent development, innovation, and community development efforts," said APLU President Mark Becker. "We're pleased to recognize institutions that have made a remarkable impact on their community, states, nation and beyond in these critical areas."

This year's IEP University Award winners are:

• The University of New Mexico won the IEP Innovation award, recognizing exemplary initiatives spurring innovation, entrepreneurship, and technology-based economic development;
• The University of Texas at San Antonio won the IEP Place award, for exemplary initiatives resulting in social, cultural, or community development;
• East Carolina University won the IEP Talent award, recognizing exemplary initiatives in education and workforce development;
• Wayne State University won the IEP Economic Engagement Connections Award, the top-prize in the awards competition, recognizing overall excellence and leveraging across all three award categories.

To earn its IEP award, UNM took a multipronged approach to fostering innovation through the support of entrepreneurship on campus and across the state. UNM has led a multi-year campaign sharing knowledge and resources with current and prospective entrepreneurs across the state while partnering with civic and private sector partners to support a flourishing start-up ecosystem across the state.

With support from the U.S. Economic Development Administration, UNM's New Mexico Tribal Entrepreneurship Enhancement Program is also engaging Indigenous entrepreneurs to share entrepreneurship resources, address barriers to founding businesses, and connect tribal communities throughout New Mexico to support business creation and innovation. The Tribal Entrepreneurship Enhancement Program has mentored nearly 60 Indigenous Entrepreneurs in less than two years since its founding.

Overall, UNM-supported startups had a $55.4 million economic impact in 2021 and UNM researchers continue to innovate with 885 U.S. patents issued and 163 start-up companies spun-off of technology developed at UNM. 

Other IEP award winners this year included The University of Texas at San Antonio, East Carolina University and Wayne State University.

To be eligible for an IEP award, an institution must first earn the Innovation and Economic Prosperity University designation from APLU, which recognizes institutional commitment to regional economic development.

This year, APLU named University of California, Riverside; Oklahoma State University; Rutgers University-New Brunswick; University of Texas at Arlington; University of Wyoming as Innovation and Economic Prosperity University Designees. Ninety institutions have been named IEP Universities designees since the program was launched in 2013 IEP designees conduct a rigorous self-study of their economic engagement activities that includes input from external stakeholders.

As part of the self-study, each institution identifies areas for growth and improvement within its economic engagement enterprise and developed an improvement plan. This work demonstrates a commitment to continuous learning and improvement in this kind of engagement vital to universities and their regional partners.

As defined by APLU's Economic Engagement Framework - a series of tools and publications that helps institutions better know, measure, and communicate their work in economic engagement - universities collaborate with their public and private sector partners in their states and regions to promote economic growth, competitiveness, and opportunity through a variety of efforts across the aforementioned categories.

More information on the finalists' economic engagement initiatives is below.

To read the full announcement, visit APLU Names Winners.