The sum of IU and Purdue

It wasnâ??t so long ago that the thought of Indiana and Purdue universitiesâ?? doing anything of consequence together was a nonstarter.

Then they began working on economic development together, and later life science projects.

But the person who dreamed up Indianaâ??s first economic development programs thinks the universities could do far, far more.

Brian Bosworth, who has been consulting through his FutureWorks firm in Boston and then in Seattle since leaving the state
in the late â??80s, still thinks the state is poorly served by the universitiesâ?? tangling over money in the Legislature and
otherwise competing with each other.

Bosworth doesnâ??t advocate an outright merger of the systems, in part because he thinks the instructional identities of IU
and Purdue are stronger as stand-alone brands than they would be under a combined system.

Still, what if IUâ??s law school worked with Purdueâ??s Krannert faculty to find new ways for corporations to operate in an environment
increasingly influenced by regulations and other legal issues?

Thatâ??s just one idea, Bosworth says.

What do you think? How else could the stateâ??s biggest research institutions add muscle?