Hockfield encouraged concerted faculty research in an area she considered vital to the national interest: manufacturing. She launched “Production in the Innovation Economy,” a campus-wide project to provide a blueprint for 21st century manufacturing in America. During her presidency, she served as the inaugural co-chair of the White House–led Advanced Manufacturing Partnership (AMP), a task force of government, industry, and academic leaders. In an August 2011 "New York Times" op-ed, Hockfield wrote, “To make our economy grow, sell more goods to the world and replenish the work force, we need to restore manufacturing — not the assembly-line jobs of the past, but the high-tech advanced manufacturing of the future.”