BHEF's Strategic Business Engagement Model serves as the foundation for building successful partnerships between business and higher education. This model moves the two sectors from transactional relationships to strategic partnerships through five strategies:

1. ENGAGE corporate leadership;
2. FOCUS corporate philanthropy on undergraduate education;
3. IDENTIFY and tap core competencies and expertise;
4. FACILITATE and encourage employee, faculty, and staff engagement;
5. EXPAND the focus of funded research to include undergraduate education.

Recent examples of these successful partnerships:

Drake University offers undergraduate major and minor programs in data analytics, combining coursework and experiential learning, with classes ranging from algorithmic analysis of data and statistical modeling to ethics and communication. Drake shared the draft curricula with the greater Des Moines business community to solicit feedback and potential funding, and the university realized its goal of engaging corporations in central Iowa to sponsor the start-up costs for the program. Learn more.

BHEF and the Business Roundtable launched the Financial Services Industry Workforce Project to help prepare a diverse workforce well trained in cybersecurity, data science and analytics, risk management, and social and mobile technologies demanded by the financial services industry. Learn more.

To meet the demand for cyber-enabled workers in Maryland, BHEF members Northrup Grumman Corporation and the University of Maryland, College Park worked together to create the nation's first undergraduate residential honors program in cybersecurity.  Learn more.