The University Research Corridor (URC) is an alliance between Michigan State University, the University of Michigan, and Wayne State University to transform, strengthen, and diversify the state of Michigan's economy. The three institutions of the URC together draw $1.878 billion in federal academic research dollars to Michigan, 94 percent of the total coming into the state.[1]
Over the past five years, URC universities have announced an average of one new invention every day, and collectively these discoveries have led to more than 500 license agreements for new technologies and systems. Detroit News columnist Dan Howes once wrote that the three universities together offer “the closest thing Michigan has to Silicon Valley—an intellectual powerhouse.”[2]
The URC had 137,583 students enrolled in the fall of 2010. The students at the URC universities are drawn from throughout Michigan and around the world. Students from the state of Michigan accounted for 75% of total enrollment in the fall of 2009, while 15% came from elsewhere in the U.S. and the remaining 10% came from other countries.[3]