Michael Kinch (Stony Brook University) on the Future of Higher Education Innovation and Collaboration

On this episode, Michael Kinch, Inaugural Chief Innovation Officer at Stony Brook University, discusses the importance of innovation in higher education and how partnerships can help drive success.

Transcript

Voiceover: Welcome to Illumination by Modern Campus, the leading podcast focused on transformation and change in the higher education space. On today’s episode, we speak with Michael Kinch, who is the Inaugural Chief Innovation Officer at Stony Brook University. Michael and podcast host Shauna Cox discuss why innovation is required in higher education and how partnerships can help drive success.

Shauna Cox(00:02):Michael, welcome to the Illumination podcast. It's so great to be chatting with you today.

Michael Kinch (00:06):Thank you very much for the opportunity.

Shauna Cox(00:08):Absolutely. So we're currently in what I would like to say, an era of transformation in higher ed. And when you have transformation, I think that's going to require some level of innovation and that's why we're here to talk today. So I want to kick off our conversation by first asking you how have you seen higher ed evolve in recent years when it comes to innovation or maybe even a lack thereof?

Michael Kinch (00:34):So there's been a lot of change, obviously in higher ed and also higher ed's attitude towards innovation and entrepreneurship. And from my perspective, the changes that I've really seen has been that there are three categories of universities and university leaders. There are those who understand the opportunities for innovation and entrepreneurship, and one who embrace it. There are those who understand and want to embrace it but don't know how. And then there are those who, frankly, there are so many other problems in the world that they'll address that when all the other holes are plugged. And so it's really that second group, those who are interested and trying to figure out how to get it done. That I think there is a great opportunity, and again, this is all occurring within a higher education system that between demographics and everything else is changing fairly dramatically.

Shauna Cox(01:31):Absolutely. And I know that we're going to deep dive into how people can go about this later on, but I first want to set the stage here and ask what are some of the demands or maybe expectations that you are seeing from industry leaders when it comes to what they expect of the institution?

Michael Kinch (01:48):Absolutely. Industry leaders have their own set of priorities, and those priorities are to make more money or save more money. And their partnerships with academia reflect this. So for the most part, a company is not going to engage with the university as a feel good. They're going to engage with the university for a specific reason. They're looking to in-license an opportunity or they're looking to solve a problem that they have internally or to look past tomorrow towards what's going to be going on the day after tomorrow. Universities have particular expertise and insight into those areas. And so frankly, the private sector is interested in figuring out how can the university help them. Universities need to realize this. I think oftentimes part of the problems that arise is a lack of recognition of the priorities that the different partners have, and that's something we can discuss further.

Shauna Cox(02:48):Absolutely. I want to take that component of innovation and then what you were just talking about in terms of industry leaders and their needs and things like that. So how can higher leaders leverage innovation to be more aligned with meeting the needs of not only the industry leaders but also their learners?

Michael Kinch (03:08):Well, I think the key question is how can they identify the partners that they should be working with? And it's not every company everywhere. It's based upon what is your internal expertise and how might that expertise help a particular company or a particular industry. And so recognizing that you don't necessarily, everyone doesn't want to engage with Microsoft or Amazon or Pfizer. It's really a key set of companies that might fall into the sweet spot of the university. What are those companies? What is that industry? And most importantly, what can the university provide that would be of attraction? Because a lot of these companies are being saturated with different appeals for funding or appeals for help. And the reality as we discussed earlier is that the corporate leaders have got a set of things they have to do. They often fall into the what does tomorrow look like or what are the problems I'm facing now?

Shauna Cox(04:10):And I think partnerships are so key when it comes to making sure everything is aligned across all stakeholders. So I want to strip everything back and go to the foundation of what a partnership is. To your mind, what are the characteristics of a strong partnership?

Michael Kinch (04:29):So I think the key characteristic to a strong partnership is communication. That communication needs to come with an understanding of what is each partner contributing, what are the partners together intending to accomplish? And what are the individual activities that each partner needs to do to make it a successful partnership? And I would argue that most partnerships fail because one of those areas is not addressed. So perhaps there is a shared goal and an alignment in what they want to have happen, but there is a disparity between the partners as to who does what or who pays for what. And that oftentimes leads to problems. One of the key features I think of a successful partnership is from day one being very transparent and communicating and saying each partner, here's what I want to accomplish with this partnership. Here's our goals. And because each partner, the academic as well as the private sector company has goals, they have hopes and intentions, and that needs to be fully understood by all that are involved in this partnership.

Shauna Cox(05:39):And then once we reach that stage of figuring out how the partnership works and everything and things are at least trucking along, what impact does a strong partnership along with that component of innovation have on economic development?

Michael Kinch (05:57):The economic development part is really the key because whether you're talking a private university or a public one, the ability of the university to impact the regional economy through jobs, job creation, potentially corporate startups or licensing opportunities where perhaps you're not starting a company up locally, but by your university, having now a partnership with an international or a local or whatever the company is, you are giving greater visibility to the region and to the people in it. And so those are great opportunities to promote economic development within both the university and its immediate community as well as the larger community, the physical plant where the university is located and that can't be underestimated. And when you look at the ultra successful regions, those are generally regions like the South San Francisco area, Silicon Valley, the Bay area of Boston where you see a concentration of companies around universities, and you also see an enormous amount of job creation and job relocation to those areas because there are productive academic private sector collaborations and everybody wants in on that game.

Shauna Cox(07:19):Absolutely. And that kind of alludes to the next question that I have for you in terms of what people are doing and the patterns that you're seeing. So what are some of the trends that you expect to see when it comes to more workforce aligned programming and the demands around it?

Michael Kinch (07:35):I think the workforce aligned programming comes down to the fact that you need to have the right people in that environment that we just were discussing. So if you are in an area that has an intensive infrastructure and software, you need to have a well-equipped group of programmers that are able, whether it's a startup or an existing company, are able to support that if you're in a biotech area. Likewise, having individuals that have a lot of the special expertise that's needed for biotech is essential. And so it's really a matter of looking not just at what intellectual property might a particular university have, but what's the student population, what are the educational opportunities to support that intellectual property and those different opportunities that are found or centered around this particular partnership

Shauna Cox(08:43):Okay, well those are all the questions that we actually have for you. Now, before I let you go, we do have to get a restaurant recommendation from you. It's kind of a requirement on the podcast. So you are based in Long Island, New York, so if anyone's headed there, where do they need to go?

Michael Kinch (09:04):I would say that I would recommend a place called the Wine Cellar that is in Northport, New York, and it's a little hole in the wall bar slash restaurant, and they have live music and amazing food and wine and it's really good.

Shauna Cox(09:20):Amazing. I love a good little hole in the wall. They always tend to be the best places.

Michael Kinch (09:26):Agreed.

Shauna Cox(09:27):Thank you so much, Michael, for joining me. It was really great chatting with you.

Michael Kinch (09:30):Thanks. Have a great day.