Timothy V. Franklin

New Jersey Institute of Technology/New Jersey Innovation Institute

Biographical Abstracts

Tim Franklin, Ph.D., serves as principal at Franklin Solutions (FS), which he joined full-time following his recent retirement from a 25 (plus or minus)-year career as an innovating senior university leader/administrator that included numerous regional, state, and national recognitions for his projects and work. Franklin’s achievements include substantial contributions in founding, designing, advocating, and building two market-facing, special purpose institutions focused on technology development and economic growth. The New Jersey Innovation Institute (NJII) and the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research (IALR) represent two successful national models, one confronting rural challenges and the other urban. Both leverage the strengths of polytechnic research universities (NJIT and Virginia Tech, respectively) through organizational interfaces designed around applied research, innovation labs, and a comprehensive set of related programs and services. Franklin led these intermediary organizations from start-up through institutional growth of more than 125 employees and $85M+ in annual operating expenditures.

Previously, Franklin held leadership positions at Virginia Tech, Penn State, Indiana State University, and the New Jersey Institute of Technology. His responsibilities have included strategic planning, government relations, policy analysis and advocacy, strategic initiatives, fostering institutional-scale programs, fund development, leading public and private partnerships, hiring institutional staff, and articulating programs to advance the University’s economic engagement and research missions. Franklin has strategically aligned numerous partnerships among higher education, community, industry, and government focused on delivering notable regional, cluster, and technology development impact. He has obtained funding for, developed staffing, and led/overseen numerous economic and workforce development programs. Franklin founded and led TRE Networks, Inc., a nonprofit organization of leading national organizations and universities dedicated to advancing the role of research universities in transformative regional engagement (TRE) efforts.

 

Areas of Expertise

• Transformative regional engagement and intermediary institutions
• Strategy, strategic planning, and strategic initiatives
• Higher education policy
• Organizational development - collaboration, leadership, change
• Higher education law