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Friday Focus: Opportunity in partnerships

Aug. 1, 2025

— By Laura Conner, vice chancellor for research

In my last Friday Focus, I wrote about the ways that research is a public good. This week, I have been reflecting on the important role of partnerships in growing and sustaining this good work — especially in the face of federal uncertainties.

UAF has a long history of partnership with many entities, including the military, Alaska Native corporations, for-profit industries, tribal governments, non-profits, and a whole host of other state, federal, and international organizations. Partnerships with these entities lead to improved technologies, contribute to economic growth, and ensure that our research is relevant to stakeholders in the state and the nation. Our research institutes have collaborated with reindeer herders to increase food sovereignty, engaged communities to co-build responses to flooding and coastal erosion, and collaborated with industry and military partners to design and implement important energy solutions, to name a few examples among hundreds. We are truly stronger and more effective in partnership than going it alone.

Now, the world’s eyes are increasingly turning to the Arctic as a key geopolitical region. I’m writing this column from Anchorage, where leaders from all over the world and across sectors are attending the Arctic Encounter Symposium. From energy technologies to critical minerals to national security, people are talking about opportunities in the Arctic, and especially in Alaska, the state that makes the U.S. an Arctic nation. As one speaker put it, “The Arctic is less far than we thought before.” Indeed. I would argue that we are central to many issues facing the world. This increased focus on Alaska represents an opportunity to deepen current partnerships and to grow new ones. While we are currently facing some headwinds, partnership is a path for weatherproofing our research enterprise now and well into the future.

Friday Focus is a column written by a different member of UAF's leadership team every week.