The Consortium on Competitiveness and Cooperation (CCC) was originally founded in 1986 by Peter Jones and David Teece at the University of California at Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and was designed to promote research on the competitive performance of the United States in the global economy. Initially funded through grants by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and others, the CCC engaged in a number of activities including sponsoring workshops and promoting research, curriculum development, and teaching about technological innovation, strategic management, and public policy. The idea for the CCC Doctoral Conference originated at a lunch discussion in the fall of 1992 that included Professors Timothy Bresnahan, Steven Klepper, David Mowery, Richard Nelson, Richard Rosenbloom, and David Teece. Richard Nelson and David Mowery played key roles in securing continued funding and leading the CCC during the first decade. Leadership by Steve Klepper enabled the CCC to thrive during its second decade.

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The first, and now legendary, CCC Doctoral Conference was organized by Steven Klepper and Richard Nelson and held at Carnegie Mellon University in 1994. The weather during the consortium was unusually cold (reportedly more than -20°F), which made the two-block walk from the hotel accommodations to the conference location a harrowing experience for the participants. Nevertheless, the following sentiment was described by Professor Sidney Winter and held universally among those who attended: “There was so much positive energy in that meeting that everybody managed to avoid freezing to death.” Participants in subsequent consortia have worked hard to sustain that positive energy. Indeed, the CCC community has become known and appreciated for its generous spirit of collaboration and mentorship.

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Following its inception in the U.S., the conference soon expanded internationally. It was first held outside of the U.S. in 2003 when hosted by the University of Toronto, and outside of North America in 2006 when hosted by École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. A list of host schools and faculty organizers for each of the past consortia can be found here. 

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The growing intellectual base at the consortia led to the 2006 addition of “Faculty Day” on the day prior to the doctoral conference, which featured several sessions of interactive discussions led by expert faculty panelists to highlight important and new research directions of interest to the CCC community. In 2013, the Kauffman Foundation hosted the 20th annual conference at the Foundation’s headquarters in Kansas City, Missouri. In addition to being a celebration of the 20th year anniversary of the CCC conference, that year’s Faculty Day session themes explicitly honored Steven Klepper as a cofounder and chief organizer credited for ensuring the continued existence and success of the consortium. As we encouraged invited doctoral students to also attend this celebratory day, we updated the name to “Community Day.” It has since been an ongoing tradition to pay tribute each year to one of the senior scholars in the CCC community. In addition to highlighting the seminal scholarly contributions of each year’s honoree, tributes also relate many charming anecdotes about the history of CCC! A list of honored faculty from all Community Day celebrations can be found here. 

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In 2013, enabled by insights and advice from Steven Klepper, the leadership of the consortium transitioned to Rajshree Agarwal. Rajshree and a team of advisors incorporated CCC into an official 501c3 nonprofit in 2014. CCC is now led by a ten-person Board of Directors (with term limits), which includes offices of President, Vice President, Treasurer, and Secretary. A list of past faculty engaged in CCC leadership—including founders, advisors, officers and Board members—can be found below. 

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In addition to Community Day, each year CCC hosts its Doctoral Conference to which 30-34 students are invited to present their dissertation topics in the areas of Strategy, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship to 60-90 research-active faculty from around the globe. Over time, the list of schools and countries represented by doctoral student and faculty participants has grown dramatically to over 80 institutions from a dozen countries. Nearly a thousand doctoral students have benefited from participating in CCC. A list of student alumni can be found here. The  CCC community continues to expand and remains as intellectually vibrant as ever!