Northern Illinois University: Accelerating innovation and economic impact

The 2026 APLU Innovation and Economic Prosperity Designation provided Northern Illinois University with an opportunity to reflect upon our successes in the areas of economic and community development. But more importantly, the self-study process prompted thoughtful conversations and concrete actions in response to an age-old question: How can we do it better?

NIU’s vision is to be an engine for innovation to advance social mobility; promote personal, professional and intellectual growth; and transform the world through research, artistry, teaching and outreach. Our 2026 IEP designation and Carnegie classification as a Community Engaged Institution reinforce our efforts around these objectives. NIU has held the IEP designation since it was first instituted in 2012.

Through the IEP self-study, it became clear that our work to ensure NIU is a partner in regional economic and innovation vitality is multifaceted. Efforts to ensure institutional buy-in to values that warrant an IEP designation were established through strategic investment.

However, many grassroot efforts from faculty, staff, and students also contribute to NIU’s impact—from specific courses with engagement elements, to community-engaged research projects, to joint efforts with regional partners to secure new investment. Reflecting on these insights, three areas for growth and improvement emerged for the coming years.

Deepen institutional support for external relations to amplify both centralized and dispersed efforts.

The IEP application process revealed a gap between the academy’s traditional structures and the broad, collaborative work of faculty that underpins Innovation and Economic Prosperity efforts. In short, we saw a need to look beyond efforts that focus on revenue generation and more fully capture and amplify faculty grassroots activities to ensure stronger alignment with institutional strategy.

First, we increased the effectiveness of our Strategic Development Team, established six years ago to ensure alignment around key institutional initiatives. By adding leadership from the provost and president’s office, we broadened the team’s knowledge of grassroots activities and widened its focus. Additionally, a new committee structure brings in operational staff to implement campus-wide initiatives. This reorganization has reinvigorated the team and modeled the type of collaborative leadership that accelerates achievement of mutual goals.

We also formed a Huskie Frontier Team to find and cultivate faculty and staff expertise that is a value-add to industry interests. It’s an ambitious endeavor. The team functions as a full-service development firm that supports internal talent development and provides bridges to meet external needs.

Finally, with the support of the EAB Future Leaders program, NIU is devoting resources to the creation of an Economic Development Map showing current economic development needs and NIU assets that could address these needs. The map will serve as the foundation for an actionable and adaptive strategic plan.

Increase faculty participation in engagement by examining the incentive structure and identifying unaccounted‑for efforts.

NIU has seen an uptick in participation of class-level engagement objectives. But faculty are often constrained in their time by retention, tenure and promotion (RTP) guidelines. To mitigate the chilling effect on non-counted scholarship, service and teaching, NIU’s Faculty Senate has updated RTP guidelines to include new metrics on IEP and engagement elements. These efforts have been undertaken in partnership with the Division of Outreach, Engagement and Regional Development and Academic Affairs and guided by a campus-wide Engagement Roundtable, another new group formed to help ensure strategic alignment around institutional-engagement initiatives.

NIU leaders are also developing tools to support professional development in engagement and economic development. One effort is a recently launched module-based program that develops faculty resources for industry relations. Modules include tools for collaboration, external engagement, value-proposition development, proposal development and leadership. They will be adapted with time and supplemented with other programmatic efforts to meet evolving needs.

Partner to contribute to regional areas of growth.

The primary opportunity identified in the IEP application process was the willingness of regional partners to engage with NIU.

Participants repeatedly described ways in which NIU adds economic-development value to their organizations and the region. While the university clearly serves as a major regional asset, much of this impact has resulted from the efforts of individual faculty and staff, rather than from a cohesive, strategic framework with coordinated planning, iterative improvement or sustained follow-on programming. When it comes to community engagement, NIU has a long track record of strategic decision-making and resources allocation to ensure the maximum impacts of our partnerships are realized. The IEP process has demonstrated that this approach should be replicated in economic development.

Working with the DeKalb County Economic Development Corporation, NIU is now developing a regional economic development strategic plan. It builds on the new economic development mapping to comprehensively address the university’s role in achieving the region’s potential. The planning process also will engage external consultants to ensure a thorough and non-biased approach, and NIU’s Strategic Development Team will act as an oversight and advisory committee.

Increasing industry engagement will be key. In response to the evolving funding landscape and the feedback from regional partners, the Strategic Development Team will lead NIU’s efforts through new models of support for immediate and future opportunities.

One highlight is the ongoing institutionalization of industry consortiums, based on the National Science Foundation’s Industry-University Cooperative Research Center (IUCRC) models. Our existing NSF-supported IUCRC on convective storms has been very successful in its infancy, with over a dozen paying corporate members benefiting from the research of NIU faculty.

Given the scarcity of NSF funding for IUCRCs and the success of our program, NIU plans to use this model to support other areas of strength, including energy and quantum. Specific teams are being developed to cultivate consortia.

As a complement to the consortium model and to account for non-research avenues of collaboration, we are creating a concierge model of partnership. This will allow for adaptable partnerships to address university facility usage, regional workforce and customized upskilling needs, and more. We’re excited about the prospective partnerships and expect to announce new consortia later this year.

The IEP application process has provided a platform for reflection and an opportunity to fine-tune the strategic initiatives that make NIU a model for Innovation and Economic Prosperity. NIU’s talented faculty, students and staff drive the university’s regional economic and innovation efforts. Through coordinated leadership efforts, we challenged ourselves to better align and strengthen those efforts, accelerating work that supports the IEP renewal.