MSU, the University of Michigan and Wayne State University publicly announced an alliance Tuesday called the University Research Corridor.
As part of the alliance, the three universities will work to enhance research capabilities within the state of Michigan and boost the unstable economy.
"I hope certainly that this will help young people when they are looking for jobs," U-M President Mary Sue Coleman said in a conference call Tuesday.
Within the last five years, the three universities combined have averaged one new patent per day, and these advancements have led to 500 new agreements for further research or private company usage.
Officials from the universities said they hope the collaboration will bring competition to Michigan during this time when globalization is key, MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon said.
A Web site will help make the progress of the joint research accessible to the world.
"Once we have the visibility of the Web site about what's happening in Michigan, there will be more and more opportunities coming into Michigan," Simon said.
"We will have to align our resources and work together to take advantage of those opportunities."
Additional staff at each university is not being added yet, Coleman said.
"What we're doing right now is doing this with our existing resources," she said.
"We have assigned people to work on this within the project."
However, the universities will be giving an annual report to the state.
Although these are only three of the educational institutions within the state, each university will continue to keep in touch with other research institutions, Wayne State University President Irvin Reid said.
"This is an attempt to focus the state's attention on three universities that have a medical school, that bring (all together) 95 percent of the federal funds to the state and to position it as a collection of resources," Reid said.
The universities produce more than 26,000 graduates — 3,800 of which are new engineers, 1,300 have doctorates, 1,400 have master's of business administration degrees and more than 1,000 become doctors and nurses.
The Associated Press and Ashley A. Smith contributed to this report.
