Pennsylvania’s Public Universities Seek to Strengthen Partnerships, Boost Trust, and Deepen Impact
Collaboration with community partners—and with one another—is key
The leaders of three of Pennsylvania’s biggest universities had a clear message for their peers at a recent national conference in Philadelphia: Prioritize community engagement and support, work with local organizations to define research priorities, cooperate with one another—and do it now.
“The work of public institutions like ours has arguably never been more important than it is now,” John Fry, president of Temple University, told hundreds of attendees at the annual meeting of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU), held Nov. 9-11 in Philadelphia. “That is why convenings such as this are so valuable, so we can collectively work to find solutions that will help address some of the most pressing issues facing communities and the commonwealth.”
Fry gathered with Penn State President Neeli Bendapudi and University of Pittsburgh Chancellor Joan Gabel during November’s meeting for a panel discussion on strategies to counter distrust in higher education, as a sharp resurgence of skepticism and other challenges has spurred institutions to examine the causes and find solutions.
Collaborative work by The Pew Charitable Trusts, the APLU, and other organizations has supported colleges and universities that are investing in policies and programs encouraging faculty to work directly with community members and decision-makers to address local problems. Sometimes known as public impact research, these strategies are gaining momentum through efforts like the Pew-led Presidents and Chancellors Council on Public Impact Research. Chaired by Bendapudi and an initiative of the Impact Funders Forum, the council is working with funders and other partners to explore strategies such as broadening faculty promotion and tenure systems to incentivize community-based research partnerships, testing new research impact metrics, and examining approaches to researcher training.
The APLU panelists shared specific applications for public impact research in Pennsylvania while elevating public universities’ roles as civic problem-solvers. For example, in 2024, a team of professors and students from Penn State Abington and Penn State Schuylkill researched nonprofit organizations’ lack of resources and technical expertise to protect themselves from growing threats posed by cybercriminals. The academic team leveraged the findings to create a resource portal (We Are Cyber Ready) and an action plan to directly assist nonprofits—a critical project component that’s not typically part of a traditional research framework.
Another approach involved directing institutional investments and academic programs to community priorities across the commonwealth, such as Temple University’s exploration of a potential rural dentistry program 84 miles from its North Philadelphia campus in Tamaqua, Pennsylvania, a town of 7,000 residents. In collaboration with the Tamaqua Area Community Partnership nonprofit, Temple’s Kornberg School of Dentistry hopes to support and train students to provide dental services in rural Schuylkill, Carbon, and Luzerne counties.
Closer to home, Temple’s Community Gateway serves as a one-stop shop for North Philadelphia community members to receive on-site and in-person guidance about services available through Temple as well as its community and government partners. Since its May 2024 launch, the Gateway has connected with more than 3,400 North Philadelphia residents and garnered coverage from The Philadelphia Inquirer and other news outlets.
“Community-engaged research creates powerful opportunities to work in partnership to solve real problems,” Bendapudi told attendees. “When researchers and communities collaborate, it allows everyone to see the impact of research on their lives and work toward shared goals that matter most to them. Trust and connectivity grow when people see themselves as part of the solution.”
Gabel, also the incoming chair of APLU’s board of directors, pointed out that the education sector’s emphasis on its contributions to society can’t move the needle on public sentiment on its own.
“Our combined economic impact in Pennsylvania is most valuable when our work across research, health care, education, and workforce development intersects with valued partner feedback to uplift communities in ways people can see and feel,” Gabel said. “Universities build trust and buy-in when their actions and impact are driven by what the people they are partnering with care about most.”
Gabel pointed to Pitt’s BioForge as one example of such a partnership. That effort was made possible by a $100 million partnership with the Richard King Mellon Foundation to transform a former steel mill site into an innovation center focused on health care and life sciences that trains students, prioritizes community needs, and spurs spinoff companies and additional opportunities.
The cooperative spirit that drives community-facing public impact partnerships can also apply to collaborations among educational institutions. In 2024, for the first time, Penn State, Pitt, and Temple worked on a joint purchase of more than $5.3 million in office supplies for use across their institutions—some of it from a certified minority-owned supplier in Philadelphia with a commitment to local hiring. The three institutions ended up spending 7% less than they would have if they’d purchased the items on their own, freeing up resources to invest in mission-focused activities and to help keep tuition costs lower.
Bendapudi, Fry, and Gabel were enthusiastic about expanding this approach to other areas, such as sharing the cost of facilities and equipment for expensive research in areas such as quantum computing and artificial intelligence. In doing so, they can ensure that more of their institutions’ resources are deployed to benefit the public directly.
Pew is also supporting the potential for research universities to help the public in its hometown of Philadelphia. As part of this effort, Pew and the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia—together with leaders from the city’s eight largest higher education and health care institutions, including Community College of Philadelphia, Drexel University, Temple University, and the University of Pennsylvania—formed the Philadelphia Eds and Meds Collaborative. The group is focused on identifying areas where collaboration will yield outsize results for participating institutions and their communities—such as helping to develop stronger talent pipelines for the many common positions all participating institutions need to fill.
Penn State, Pitt, and Temple are leveraging their considerable capacity and embracing the mandate to lead throughout Pennsylvania. As Penn State’s Bendapudi put it: “We need to engage communities in defining the problems—and work together on activating the solutions.”
Donna Frisby-Greenwood is senior vice president, Philadelphia and scientific advancement, and Angela Bednarek is director, scientific advancement, at The Pew Charitable Trusts.
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