By The Kansas City Star Editorial Board

The “Time to Get it Right” reports have provided a valuable blueprint for getting the region’s leaders focused on higher education and life sciences over the last five years. So it makes sense to pay attention to what the latest edition has to say.

Written by former University of Michigan President James J. Duderstadt, it finds “very significant progress” toward making the region a hub for life sciences, with the Stowers Institute for Medical Research and the University of Kansas Medical Center leading the way.

The University of Missouri-Kansas City finally has strong leadership and a more efficient fundraising structure and has made strides toward becoming a “high-quality urban university,” the report says.

But despite progress in some areas, “Kansas City’s existing higher education resources fall far short of what the city needs,” Duderstadt notes. With dim prospects for increased state financial support, leaders must reach across state lines and other barriers to create a strong university research presence.

As with the two previous “Time to Get it Right” reports commissioned by the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation, this one gets points for candor.

It commends Kansas for being “extraordinary in both its vision and its support of the life sciences effort” and correctly notes that “the State of Missouri has been missing in action on this agenda.”

The need for a statewide civic effort to convince Missouri’s elected leaders to invest more resources in higher education and life sciences is one of the spot-on recommendations of the report.

Other recommendations that should be on top of the agenda:

Don’t drop the ball on efforts to create a National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center, based at the University of Kansas Medical Center.
The designation would bring leading scientists and research grants and would enable more patients to receive cutting-edge treatments locally. Duderstadt calls for a push to raise the $92 million in private funds that are believed necessary to receive the designation. He recommends that the KU medical center take a more hands-on role in the fundraising.

Recruit leadership with expertise in “transferring research from the laboratory to the bedside and then into the marketplace.” It makes little sense to be the cradle for groundbreaking medical discoveries if a system isn’t in place to get them through the testing process and on the market. The suggestion that the Kauffman Foundation lead the effort is a good one.

Come up with a strategy to help students succeed in community college. “Access without graduation is not success,” Duderstadt accurately notes.

Focus on urban public education.
The report notes “early signs of improvement” in Kansas City’s urban school districts. It commends new Kansas City School District Superintendent John Covington for bringing “courage” and “administrative energy” to the job.

But Duderstadt correctly notes the enormous challenges facing urban public education, and proposes that the region expend more civic and philanthropic energy on improving public and charter schools.

The “Time to Get it Right” reports are important because they look at the big picture. UMKC will struggle as an urban college, for instance, unless the public schools improve. Life science companies need research universities nearby.

Area leaders should view the latest report as they have the previous two — as a guide for moving forward.