Dr. Matthew J. Higgins joined the Entrepreneurship & Strategy faculty at the David Eccles School of Business, University of Utah, in 2019. His research interests center primarily on firm responses to productivity changes (and challenges) and the performance implications of these decisions. This includes understanding the interrelationship between internal R&D and the use of external technology markets through acquisitions, alliances, licensing, and corporate venture capital. Utilizing a novel risk model, this also includes whether firms are dynamically optimizing their R&D portfolios. Focusing on the external environment, Dr. Higgins is interested in the impact regulation has on innovation and productivity. Most of Dr. Higgins' research has been conducted within the context of the pharmaceutical industry and has been accepted for publication in a diverse range of leading journals including Science, Science Translational Medicine, The RAND Journal of Economics, The Review of Economics and Statistics, Strategic Management Journal, Research Policy and Journal of Financial Economics. In addition to his faculty appointment, Dr. Higgins is the Director of the Sorenson Center for Discovery & Innovation Studies (SCDIS). SCDIS is focused on conducting and promoting research in the area of innovation, with an emphasis on the pharmaceutical industry. Dr. Higgins was the recipient of a National Science Foundation's Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship Fellowship (IGERT). In 2012, he was nominated and appointed as a Faculty Research Fellow to the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) program on Productivity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship. In 2019, he was appointed as an Affiliated Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition in Munich, Germany. He previously served on the NSF SBIR/STTR Advisory Subcommittee in Washington, DC