Conference participants highlighted these recommendations to aid
development of multi-state collaboration programs:

1. Think big, start small. Look first for projects that keep institutional management issues to a minimum. This will increase the potential for success and set the stage for the next generation of collaborative enterprises. As one conference speaker noted, “Once you have a project started and working between two states, it’s a lot easier to add a third.”
   
   
2. Let constituent needs drive programs. This is fundamental to obtain the needed support from participants, stakeholders and funders.
   
   
3. Be the leader. Participants agreed universities can choose to initiate collaborative projects or have such programs mandated. It was recommend that each Land Grant university reallocate or set-aside 10 percent of its existing Hatch and Smith-Lever formula funds for multi-state or regional collaboration programs, with the goal of increasing that percentage to 50 percent within 10 years. It was also recommended that the federal government, industry and foundations develop programs to match those funds. Participants were adamant that these funds should be used for new initiatives, not existing programs.
   
   
4. Identify champions—at all levels. Multi-state collaboration requires commitment at every stage—from the university president, to provosts, vice-presidents, deans, faculty leaders, commodity group leaders and legislators.
   
   
5. Look in as well as out. There may be as much value in collaborations among colleges of agriculture, medicine and law within the same university, as between two state universities.
   
   
6. Make mutual benefits mandatory. Each party does not have to contribute or share equally in the costs, work or results, but each party needs to reap some rewards for working together.
   
   
7. Involve the business officer early. This maximizes the ability of business managers to aid in development of the project. Waiting too long to involve the business manager can cost partners money.
   
   
8. Identify areas of agreement. Intellectual property, academic credit, tuition inequities and similar cross-cutting issues must be resolved at the institutional level and reduced almost to boilerplate for most future partnerships.
   
   
9. Model best behavior. Successful multi-state academic programs should be used as models for new collaborations in research, Extension, academic and international programs.
   
   
10. Communicate success. Multi-state programs require partners to work harder to share news about program activities and outcomes to diverse and distant audiences.