University Leaders Examine How Research Partnerships Can Serve the Public Good

People sitting and walking around a large open space in front of a brown building. There are steps carpeted in green on the left side of the frame. — Public spaces like this urban plaza demonstrate how research and community partnerships can transform areas into vibrant gathering places that serve diverse populations.

Article January 21, 2026

University leaders and funders worldwide are emphasizing the important role university-based research can play in addressing societal problems, such as economic mobility and public health. The Pew Charitable Trusts and the Glion Colloquium, a Switzerland-based think tank of university leaders, hosted a webinar in April to share examples of successful public impact research and to identify opportunities to advance research partnerships that serve the public good. The event, co-hosted by Dr. Angela Bednarek, director of scientific advancement at Pew, and Dr. Yves Flückiger, president of Glion, brought together university leaders, funders, and policymakers to share how they connect research to societal needs and highlight promising pathways forward.

“Universities are not just knowledge centers,” Donna Frisby-Greenwood, Pew’s senior vice president for Philadelphia and scientific advancement, said during the virtual forum. “They are vital partners in addressing societal issues.” Last year, Pew’s Impact Funders Forum and partners launched the Presidents and Chancellors Council on Public Impact Research to support collaboration between leaders in higher education, funding organizations, government, and other sectors to maximize universities’ contributions to the public good.

Cross-sector partnerships (for example, between universities and community organizations) are one promising mode of achieving public impact through research. The drawback? “Partnerships are costly,” said Dr. Jessica Corner, executive chair of Research England, the biggest research funder in the United Kingdom. Participants need adequate funding and resources to “stretch their imagination to do excellent work,” she explained, setting the stage for examples of what well-resourced, collaborative partnerships can achieve in practice.

How one London partnership is helping the environment

In densely populated King’s Cross in the U.K., an Imperial College London project is not only producing important data and fostering healthier communities, it’s also teaching school children about the scientific process. The Breathe London Communities initiative, supported by Research England, ambitiously set a neighborhood development goal for zero net carbon by 2035. One component, called “Creating Healthy Spaces,” equips primary school children with monitors that measure air quality. Sensors are also installed in high-traffic areas, such as busy roads, malls, and around public transportation.

These efforts are designed to understand and address residents’ experiences with poor air quality, and they complement city studies that show that most air pollution in London is caused by road transportation and commercial heating systems. Corner noted that such investments serve multiple purposes for public research funders and universities: They produce findings that can inform policy and advance future research, and they engage the public—in this case, school children—in data collection. That helps to increase public awareness of the important role that science plays in shaping and supporting healthy communities.

Interdisciplinary collaboration yields agricultural advancements

Innovation “thrives in teams with many backgrounds and perspectives,” said Dr. Nana Aba Appiah Amfo, professor and vice-chancellor at the University of Ghana. For long-standing problems, she said, the different experiences that people bring can help spur cutting-edge approaches. Take CluckChat, an app that emerged from the University of Ghana’s student innovation program. The poultry industry is an essential part of Ghana’s agricultural economy, and CluckChat helps poultry farmers work more efficiently by combining agricultural expertise with digital tools. Thanks to the creative solution of student researchers and their professors, farmers can use the app to monitor their farms, record data, and create reminders for key tasks such as scheduling feedings or vaccinations for poultry. Over time, this knowledge can also help them expand their operations.

Imperial College London has also been involved in developing CluckChat, joining Impact Hub Accra, a consultancy firm based in Ghana, and the University of Ghana to support the work of student entrepreneurs. By intentionally including a variety of research disciplines in the student teams—for example, technology, agriculture, marketing, and business—the project aimed to not only boost the chances of the app’s success, but to better prepare students to address complex, real-world challenges with their research.

Challenges persist in rewarding public impact research

Despite growing momentum for partnerships that address public issues through research, significant challenges remain in how universities and funders recognize and reward public impact. Dr. Michael Spence, president and provost of University College London, noted that “universities are brilliant at producing knowledge, but still hesitant to reward those who put that knowledge to work in communities.” While interdisciplinary projects with local partners are already making a difference in communities across the globe, there are still challenges that make promoting the widespread adoption of this approach difficult.

The webinar in April highlighted that public impact research tends to be undervalued in faculty promotion decisions—and underfunded relative to the need. Major university rankings prioritize total research output and citation metrics rather than societal impact, creating the “publish or perish” incentive. Although these research publications add to a wider discourse on issues such as biomedical discovery or artificial intelligence, they do not always relate immediately to the needs of local constituencies, in the way that projects like CluckChat or Breathe London Communities do.

Webinar panelist Dr. Ana Mari Cauce, former president of the University of Washington and member of the Presidents and Chancellors Council on Public Impact Research, said that “uneven progress is progress nonetheless” when it comes to broadening how the impact of research is determined. Cauce underscored the importance of collaboration across institutions to build consensus. She also highlighted the value of expanding interdepartmental representation on tenure committees and rewarding faculty whose research responds to community priorities and contributes to improving quality of life.

Her comments echoed a central theme of the webinar discussion: Valuing public impact research will require not only vision, but alignment across the many systems and structures involved in the research process. Initiatives like Breathe London Communities and CluckChat show what is possible when universities, funders, and communities work together to create tangible benefits for society from research. Continued coordination between groups like the Impact Funders Forum, the Presidents and Chancellors Council, and the Glion Colloquium can help increase understanding and implementation of these successful research approaches.

Jocelyn Hastings works with The Pew Charitable Trusts’ evidence project.