Researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Northeastern University, and several other institutions are developing ways to extract information from biomedical and biological signals. Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital and Northeastern are measuring the effectiveness of a breast cancer drug and working with other partners to develop nanodevices that can provide the hardware for future biomedical applications. At McLean Hospital, nurses have collaborated with Northeastern on assessments of inpatient units, job satisfaction, and antidepressants for adolescents.

This brief sampling of activities within the research partnership between Northeastern University and Partners HealthCare—a system of Harvard Medical School-affiliated health care and research institutions in Greater Boston—offers a glimpse of the kind of progress that can be driven by research. In the first instance, that progress is scientific and technical, but it quickly becomes economic and social as well. Viewed through this prism, academic research can be a powerful engine of regional development and a key differentiator in the competition for investment, jobs, and quality of life in the nation's metropolitan areas.

Consider a few facts from a recent study of the impact of research activities by eight research universities in Greater Boston. In 2000, these universities were granted 264 patents, signed 250 commercial licensing agreements, and helped form 41 start-up companies. In 2001-2002, of the 50 early-stage start-up companies in the Boston area that attracted the most outside investment, 25—including 7 of the top 10—had connections to one or more of the eight universities. At the same time, the academic strength of these universities helped sustain Boston's prized cluster of world-class teaching hospitals as leaders in cutting-edge medical practice and as a fundamental element of the region's attractiveness as a place to live.

The central challenge explored in this essay involves how cities, universities, and academic medical centers can join together to form mutually beneficial partnerships that promote regional vitality as well as university development. Nowhere is there a greater potential for a productive alignment than in the area of research. Mayors, governors, and other civic officials seeking to improve the quality of life for local residents and the competitive strength of their region should make support for research a central tenet of their agendas, and we applaud Boston Mayor Thomas Menino's leadership in this regard. Likewise, universities and their corporate and medical partners should seek ways to align their research activities with the developmental needs of their host regions.

There are many ways that regional political leaders can help support the research activities of the universities and institutions in their midst. They can articulate the value of research to promote public support for academic activities. They can support efforts by universities, hospitals, and other partners to find space for new research facilities. They can improve the business environment supporting innovation and licensing. They can invest in science education at all educational levels to ensure the kind of skilled work force needed to sustain a technology-oriented economy. They can assist universities and academic medical centers in obtaining federal research funding both through advocacy and through providing matching dollars that demonstrate local commitment to research activities.

Urban universities, for their part, can best serve this alignment of town and gown by strengthening their commitment to research that can most effectively contribute to local and regional progress. As research foci continue to emerge—from genomics, proteomics, and nanoscience to climate change, globalization, and AIDS—that cut across academic disciplines, we must become more adept at interdisciplinary collaboration and, indeed, collaboration among academic, medical, corporate, and government offices. Finally, we must increase our support for the development of entrepreneurs on our own campuses and the processes through which academic advances are translated into new technologies, procedures, and businesses.

We have much work to do to fully realize this potential alignment of town and gown, but we have some powerful examples of what is possible. Perhaps the most striking of these involves the emergence of campus research parks and technology centers in key regions of the country: the Princeton Forrestal Center, Massachusetts Institute of Technology's University Park, Stanford's Research Park, North Carolina's Research Triangle Park, and Harvard's plans in Allston, to cite a few examples. These parks represent a true collaboration between town and gown in support of local and regional progress, both in their development and in their operation, as university and corporate researchers work side by side to develop the technologies, medicines, and other innovations that can help this nation and, indeed, our world, continue its march of progress.

It is that kind of promise that compels institutions like Partners HealthCare and Northeastern University to forge research partnerships with each other and with many other institutions. And it is that kind of promise that compels us now to urge both town and gown to continue to build upon this new alignment through research.

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