Partnerships between higher education and business have long been an important part of the academic landscape, but often they are based on shorter-term transactional objectives rather than on longer-term strategic goals. BHEF's National Higher Education and Workforce Initiative brings together business and academia at the institutional, regional and national levels to create sustainable new opportunities for undergraduates to learn about emerging fields such as data science and analytics, cybersecurity, energy, risk management, and social and mobile technologies through direct engagement with the companies working in these areas. These partnerships are built on a base of evidence, strategic business engagement and design principles that aim to align needs with existing and enhanced capacity.