The Great Lakes Higher Education Consortium (GLHEC) was launched in 2020 to facilitate a new era of cross-border, institutional collaboration in the bi-national Great Lakes region with a focus on three overarching priorities for strengthening the region’s long-term competitiveness and sustainability – skills and talent development, research and innovation, and entrepreneurship.

The Council of the Great Lakes Region released its report, Great Lakes, Great Minds: Setting the Stage for Higher Education, Business, and Government Collaboration in the Great Lakes to Drive Talent Development, Innovation & Entrepreneurship, which was funded by the United States Mission in Canada, on June 18, 2020.

The report, co-authored with John Austin, Director of the Michigan Economic Center and Senior Non-Resident Fellow with the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and the Brookings Institution, highlighted the strength of the region’s world-class teaching and research institutions and the role they can, and must play, in strengthening the region’s competitiveness and sustainability.

The launch of the Great Lakes Higher Education Consortium in October 2020, administered by CGLR and co-founded with the University of Toronto and the University of Illinois System, provides a forum for creating and funding more regular, impactful, cross-border collaborations amongst Great Lakes higher education institutions, first and foremost, and then between these institutions, companies and government in order to find solutions to the most pressing socio-economic and environmental pressures facing the region.

The University of Michigan, the University of Wisconsin System, Queen’s University, and McGill University joined the Consortium in 2021, serving as founding members alongside the University of Toronto and the University of Illinois System. The Consortium may further expand its membership upon finalizing a governance document and completing a strategic plan later in 2021.