Dive Brief:
- A professor and graduate student at the University of Arizona have developed a new type of non-penetrating sunscreen, and the university has licensed its use to MexiAloe Laboratorios, a subsidiary of Novamex, a major Mexican food-distribution industry titan, according to the Arizona Daily Star. The company has exclusive rights to the product.
- UA Professor Douglas Loy says the new sunscreen will not be able to seep through the skin. The system's Tech Launch Arizona helped fund basic research, with its commercialization department offering additional assistance. Representatives from MexiAloe were also involved early in the process.
- UA works with Mexican universities and industries on many different kinds of projects, and representatives from Novamaex and UA deans were in touch throughout the process. UA College of Science Dean Joaquin Ruiz said he hoped the successful negotiation between the college and MexiAloe could lead to further collaborations with the country.
Dive Insight:
Colleges and universities are transforming their marketing approach in order to better attract students, with an understanding they must refine their programs to parallel trends in the workforce and target applicants with search words. However, advertising to industries for potential partnership could yield productive relationships. Many faculty members do a poor job of marketing their research to private industry, and often, they don't even communicate their accomplishments to the university's marketing and advancement teams, which could help them position their work for profit or publicity.
The type of international partnerships between international private industries and American public universities exemplified by the UA-MexiAloe collaboration could continue also help soften international relations, especially at a moment when they could perhaps be frayed due to the United States' current political climate. There has been some concern that international student enrollment may drop due to President Donald Trump's policy proposals and the uncertainty regarding the H1-B visa.
In a recent Education Dive interview, Cynthia Miller-Idriss, an associate professor of education and sociology at American University, noted that there were concerns that international professors who would have trouble traveling to the U.S. as well as international scholars based in the country who have concerns about leaving at the moment. These are typical ways in which an American-based university interacts beyond the borders of the country, but continuing to foster business relationships with foreign entities may be a way to continue to wield influence, and it may be a course of action less suspectible to changes mandated by Washington, D.C.