The University Research Corridor (URC) is an alliance of Michigan’s three largest academic institutions: Michigan State University, University of Michigan, and Wayne State University. The purpose of this alliance is to accelerate economic development in Michigan by educating students, attracting talented workers to Michigan, supporting innovation, and encouraging the transfer of technology to the private sector.

The URC hired Anderson Economic Group to quantify the economic impact of the Research Corridor universities’ activities on Michigan’s economy. Our first annual report will answer the question: what would the loss be to the state if the Research Corridor universities left Michigan? The report will then measure and benchmark the URC’s economic contributions to the state in terms of jobs, earnings, economic development activities, and tax revenue.

We provided a preliminary report to the URC in May 2007 that laid the foundation for the final economic impact analysis. The preliminary report described the scale of the URC’s operations in Michigan, calculated the earnings of URC alumni in Michigan in 2006, and compared the research and development and tech transfer activities of the URC with peer university clusters in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina. We presented our findings at the Detroit Regional Chamber’s Mackinac Policy Conference on May 31, 2007.