BBR Director’s Message January 2025: Continuity and Collaboration

Bruce Kellison talks with leaders from Northern Sweden and the Texas/New Mexico Permian Basin at a 2024 workshop exploring the economic impacts of energy transition. Photo credit: Gregory Pogue

 

Continuity and Collaboration

 

After 26 years leading the Bureau of Business Research in the IC² Institute at The University of Texas at Austin, I’m retiring. It is both humbling and exciting to reflect on my time in Austin.

 

I came to UT because of oil: I thought the best place to study political economy and the Russian oil sector was Texas, the industry’s beating heart in the U.S. And when the chance came to work in the Bureau and continue working on topics related to the former Soviet Union, like regional development and technology commercialization, I knew I’d found colleagues who studied solutions not only to local and regional problems but also ones with national and international impact.

 

The Bureau, now in its 99th year on campus, is effective precisely because of its broad mission: to undertake interdisciplinary research to make the Texas economy more competitive. In approving the Bureau’s creation in 1926, the Board of Regents declared that the BBR would “make available to the businessmen [sic] of Texas the best thought on economic and business problems.”

 

Long before I arrived, the Bureau collaborated with UT professors on impact studies of industries as varied as gravel mining, cattle and natural fibers production, and, of course, oil and gas extraction. How times have and haven’t changed: The BBR recently wrapped up a study of the economic impact of a nuclear small modular reactor industry in Texas.

 

In my time at the Bureau, the most rewarding and useful research projects have centered around what George Kozmetsky called “unstructured problems” facing Texas. What are the most effective economic development strategies for small Texas towns to pursue? How should Texas structure its trade relationships with Mexico? What is the economic impact of human trafficking and sexual assault on the state’s economy? And how can artificial intelligence be safely and effectively harnessed to improve economic well-being for all Texans?

 

What better way to work on unstructured problems than with collaborators who possess the skills and the passion to produce high-impact research? Example: The Bureau’s partnership with the Steve Hicks School of Social Work has resulted in grant-funded workshops, courses and publications on human trafficking and domestic violence — plus international research streams that we never envisioned when we started in 2016 with a single project estimating the economic impact of sexual assault on the Texas economy. Today, this collaboration has led my colleague and successor, Matt Kammer-Kerwick, to conduct research on reducing security risks that may result from human-wildlife conflicts in Africa.

 

And the Bureau’s Senior Research Scientist Jim Jarrett continues to explore ways that historically underutilized businesses can overcome barriers to growth — a line of BBR research and training that goes back more than a decade.

 

As I leave the Bureau to slow down a bit, travel with my family, and get on my bike more, I am excited to follow my friends and colleagues in the Bureau and at IC². I’m eager to see where their curiosity leads them in their work to improve the lives of Texans and make our world a better place.

 

Best,

Screenshot 2023 11 01 at 10.40.50 AM

Bruce

 

 

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