Innovate Carolina dashboard 2.0 shows UNC’s economic, social impact

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July 18, 2018
By Brock

How are all the talented minds and new innovations at UNC-Chapel Hill making an economic and social difference in the world? And where is this positive impact happening?

Innovate Carolina launched the latest version of its impact and engagement dashboard in July 2018, after publishing its initial dashboard prototype in 2017. The latest version of the dashboard follows the a talent-innovation-place framework used by the Association of Public Land Grant Universities to help universities maximize their capacity for community and economic engagement.

The Innovate Carolina dashboard complements the extensive information already available via the existing Office of Institutional Research. For example, the institutional research dashboard provides a robust picture of the current state of the university as it exists internally: information about student enrollment, faculty, research, tuition and fees, diversity, finance, etc.

The Innovate Carolina dashboard complements existing dashboards and analytical reporting systems by telling the story of how all the University’s innovation and entrepreneurship efforts benefit the external economy and society at large. It includes information about:

>Intellectual property. Inventions, patents, licensing revenue, etc.
>Startups. Commercial and social ventures created by UNC faculty, students and alumni.
>Economic impact. The number of UNC startups, and people employed by those startups, across North Carolina.
>Entrepreneurship education. Student and faculty trends regarding participation in entrepreneurship courses.
>Investor programs. Results from the Carolina Angel Network and Carolina Research Ventures Fund
>Innovation programs. Metrics from innovation programs available at UNC-Chapel Hill to help faculty, students and staff turn their ideas into innovations.

The dashboard combines data with the real-world stories of Carolina students, faculty and alumni whose work in innovation and entrepreneurship fuels the economic and social impact found behind the numbers.

The data displayed in dashboard is based on several sources, including the Innovate Carolina Startups Database, which was launched in 2013. The database tracks a number of critical activities related to Carolina’s innovation and economic impact:

>Startups. The database tracks 521 UNC startups dating back to 1958. Of those 531 startups, 399 are still active. Data includes startup funding, revenue, jobs, the school or department of faculty and student founders, participation in UNC startup support programs, and more.

>Innovation programs. The database also tracks the level of engagement people have with innovation support programs provided by UNC-Chapel Hill. For example, it analyzes the participation of students, faculty, mentors, entrepreneurs-in-residence and others. Today, the database follows and reports on more than 25 I&E programs located on campus at UNC-Chapel Hill. It is continuously adding new programs. For example, Carolina’s Be A Maker (BeAM) Network is the latest program joining the database, which will allow the University to examine and better understand the connection between making, the development of new inventions and entrepreneurship.

View Innovate Carolina impact dashboard