Dayton Business Journal: Inside Wright State’s push to innovate education and research with regional partners

Named in honor of Orville and Wilbur Wright, Wright State University aims to carry forward their bold inventive spirit in everything it does.

“Our mission is not only to educate, but to innovate by solving problems, creating opportunity and elevating our region through ideas that fly,” said Daniel Palmer, Wright State’s director of government affairs and secretary to the board of trustees.

The university seeks to consistently find new ways to integrate innovation into its students’ education, cultivating both workforce development and research capabilities within the region through robust community partnerships.

Wright State University is a finalist for the Dayton Business Journal’s Innovator of the Year award.

One of its newest educational models serves both students and employers; Wright State’s joint Nursing Academy with Premier Health and its growing partnership with Dayton Children’s Hospital blend real-world clinical experience with financial support and guaranteed job placement.

These partnerships not only meet urgent workforce needs, they also create long-term community-based pathways that improve lives and strengthen systems.

Wright State also pushes for campus integration with Wright-Patterson Air Force Base for collaborative military research.

In December 2024, Wright State University inked an expanded agreement with the base, granting Air Force researchers access not only to the Neuroscience Engineering Collaboration Building, but to labs, classrooms, office spaces and even on-campus housing across the Dayton campus.

With this partnership, civilian students and more than 60 researchers from the Air Force Research Laboratory are able to collaborate seamlessly in a “living laboratory” environment designed for interdisciplinary learning and applied discovery.

Students work directly with innovations in human performance science, including studies on sleep, brain stimulation and cognitive performance. This approach allows for frequent collaboration between students, faculty and military scientists, speeding up research and developing expertise applicable to both civilian and defense sectors.

“From the legacy of the Wright brothers to our forward-facing mission today, Wright State University has always been a place where innovation takes flight,” Palmer said. “Innovation is not a department at Wright State. It is our culture, our mindset and our promise to the region we serve.”

Read the article at bizjournals.com/dayton.