The Arizona Board of Regents annually prepares an analysis of the financial condition of Arizona State University, Northern Arizona University, and The University of Arizona using data from the universities’ audited financial statements. This Assessment of Financial Strength uses the methodology developed by KPMG, BearingPoint, et al. and used by university governing boards and accreditation agencies across the country. The methodology employs four financial ratios and a single indicator of financial health—the Composite Financial Index—and provides a scale against which to benchmark our universities. The analysis is for each university’s entire enterprise, which includes their component units.

The wild land/urban interface is a concern in Coconino County because of the potential for wild land fuels to ignite combustible structures and vice-versa. Destroying homes, property, and trees is just one way that wildfire harms an area. Wildfires can destroy habitat, soils, and forest health, disrupting economic stability, transportation corridors, recreation opportunities, water supplies, and scenery, as well as undermining a community’s emotional and spiritual well-being. Reducing the threat of catastrophic wildfire is a priority in the wild land/urban interface. This plan outlines actions needed to prepare and equip the greater Flagstaff community to live and thrive within our fire-adapted ponderosa pine forests.

The collaborative process for developing the Tusayan Community Wildfire Protection Plan began May 5, 2004 at a Tusayan/Grand Canyon Chamber of Commerce Board meeting in Tusayan. A CWPP is developed to assist local fire districts, local governmental agencies and residents in the identification of lands—including federal lands—at risk from severe wildfire threat and to identify strategies for reducing fuels on wildlands while improving forest health, supporting local economies, and improving firefighting response capabilities.

Growth in the stock of knowledge has been the most important factor behind the dramatic rise in living standards in the United States and other countries over the past 100 years. Systematic efforts made by firms, universities, governments, and other organizations to increase the stock of knowledge are referred to as research and development (R&D). The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the entire system of R&D in the United States—or as it is sometimes called, the national innovation system. Special emphasis will be placed on basic research. This is the component of R&D that is most likely to be underprovided by the private sector and the one that figures most prominently in public policy toward science and technology. The report also emphasizes the role of universities that, in the United States, perform the lion’s share of basic research.

The report provides a variety of basic statistical indicators of R&D effort and identifies recent trends in sources of R&D funding. The report also reviews classic arguments on the appropriate role of government in supporting R&D and the strengths and weaknesses of universities as performers of R&D. The U.S. national innovation system is compared with those in other major industrialized countries.

This paper provides a review of studies that examine the extent to which university research promotes local economic growth and development. The primary focus of the paper is on economic impacts that derive from the innovative outputs of faculty. this paper evaluates Arizona State University and the Phoenix metropolitan area in terms of factors that enhance the local economic impact of university research. The potential for local impacts from ASU’s research and graduate programs is greatly aided by the fact that ASU is located in a major metropolitan area with a climate and other natural amenities that mobile professional workers find attractive.

For a community to take full advantage of the opportunities provided in the Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003, it must first prepare a Community Wildfire Protection Plan. Maricopa County, partner agencies, and participating communities wish to adopt a Plan to better protect their communities from wildfire risk, to better prepare citizens, and to become eligible to apply for and receive federal and other grant monies to implement wildland fire mitigation and programs.

19 members of the Granite Mountain Interagency Hotshot Crew died after being entrapped and burned over on the Yarnell Hill Fire in Yarnell, Arizona. The purpose of this document is to provide:
* A timeline of events that occurred between the time of ignition on June 28 and the entrapment and burnover on June 30;
* An analysis of the fire behavior and fire weather on June 30;
* A discussion of overhead management, strategies and tactics used on the fire, and documentation of decision points leading up to the entrapment and burnover that claimed the lives of the firefighters.