BHEF Releases New Report on High-Impact Digital Workforce Partnerships

Strategic Business Engagement Model between businesses and higher education helps to solve national demand for development of, and access to a prepared workforce for the digital economy.

WASHINGTON, DC (January 27, 2018) – The Business-Higher Education Forum (BHEF) has released a new report, Creating Purposeful Partnerships: Business and Higher Education Working Together to Build Regional Talent Ecosystems for the Digital Economy, which serves as a playbook for CEOs and their executive teams to establish strategic partnerships with higher education leaders in order to meet the demand for ever-evolving digital talent.

The report details BHEF’s proven Strategic Business Engagement Model and Partnership Implementation Process and offers insights into strategies for developing successful business-led regional talent ecosystems. These partnerships  facilitate development of future workforces, ensuring they are equipped with the digital skills necessary for companies’ long-term success.

“Strategic partnerships between business and higher education leaders are the key to deepening regional talent pools across the United States and allowing higher education to respond to businesses’ to rapidly respond to the demand for diverse talent with digital skills,” said Brian Fitzgerald, CEO of BHEF. “Creating Purposeful Partnerships is our first report that lays out our Strategic Business Engagement Model and Partnership Implementation Process in great detail, acting as a playbook for businesses looking for a scalable, established process that has delivered repeated success since its inception.”

The report builds upon BHEF’s work, supported by a five-year grant from the National-Science Foundation, and features examples from six BHEF-led partnerships: Northrop Grumman and the University of Maryland, College Park (cybersecurity), IBM and the City University of New York (data science and analytics, urban sustainability), NextEra Energy and Miami Dade College (data science and analytics), Raytheon and Northeastern University (IT and cybersecurity), The Water Council and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (water science), and Boeing and Washington University in St. Louis (engineering).

Since developing the Strategic Business Engagement Model and Partnership Implementation Process, BHEF partnerships have created dozens of new credentials, including majors, minors, and certificates, in emerging fields such as data science and analytics, cybersecurity, and engineering, preparing thousands of graduates with the new skills necessary to the digital economy.

About the Business-Higher Education Forum
BHEF is a nonprofit membership organization comprised of the Fortune 500 c-suite executives and leading university presidents dedicated to advancing innovative education and workforce solutions and improving U.S. competitiveness. BHEF utilizes the latest market intelligence to develop industry and higher education partnerships, change models, and innovative talent solutions in high-demand and emerging fields. Through these methods, BHEF creates impactful, long-lasting, and essential pathways that align higher education with evolving needs of today’s workforce.