The power of partnerships.

Brannon, Patsy M.

From the beginning of the land grant university, the power of partnerships was clearly recognized and integral to the mission of generating new knowledge and translating that knowledge into effective and accessible education and into solutions to societal problems. The initial partners were the state and federal governments and the universities themselves. In New York, county governments soon joined the partnership, supporting local outreach extension programs. Today the partners have expanded to include stakeholders, other nonprofit organizations, industries, private foundations, and others.

The recent Land Grant and Outreach Panel Reviews at Cornell recommended that our partnerships be expanded and strengthened. Technology transfer and community and economic development are important mutual interests between our college and its partners. These mutual interests drive our shared investments in research, outreach extension, and education.

Approximately 20 percent of our budget funds research. About half of our research is in partnership with federal agencies through their support for research grants, contracts, and land grant research. The other half is in partnership with the state through state appropriations for land grant research, state agencies through their support for research grants and contracts, private foundations, nonprofit organizations, and industry sponsors.

Approximately 21 per cent of our budget funds outreach and extension. One of our major partners is Cornell Cooperative Extension, which conducts local outreach through county associations and national outreach through the United States Department of Agriculture Cooperative Extension Service. At least half of our outreach is through other partners such as the State University of New York community colleges, the military, various state and county agencies, local and national nonprofit and community organizations, and K-12 schools.

Thirty-one per cent of our outreach funding comes from state appropriations for the land grant outreach mission and from federal Smith-Lever formula funds for land grant extension. The majority of our funding for outreach and extension (69 percent), however, comes from externally sponsored funds provided by a diverse group of partners including state agencies, federal agencies, private foundations, industry sponsors, and nonprofit organizations.

The power of partnerships is the synergy of our combined resources supporting integrated research and outreach to address the needs of our primary stakeholders, the citizens of New York State and the nation. As you will read in this issue, our partnerships also extend internationally. One certainty is that our partnerships will continue to evolve as the needs of our stakeholders change. For our college, our partners are integral to how we meet our mission to respond to human needs through our research, teaching, and outreach extension.