Research Parks DECEmbER 2009 A globAl viEW inTo CoMMuniTiES oF innovATion CONTENTS 1 The Knowledge Economy The Knowledge Economy, 1 For Innovation, Research Parks Just Work with its new features and necessities, has 2 Urban Research Parks Rebuild Cities From Within generated its own type of “industrial estate”. 2 Technology Transfer 3 Regional Report: Europe BY: LUIS SANz, DIRECTOR GENERAL, CEO, INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF SCIENCE PARKS 4 What is the Future of Research Parks? The pre-industrial economy gave way to guilds, concen- for the skilful “knowledge workers”, help- 4 Regional Report: Latin America trated in the heart of the old cities where many street ing their companies to attract and retain talent. In short, STRPs are a formidable names remind us of these professions (Shoemaker Street, springboard to reach higher levels of Blacksmith Alley etc.). competitiveness within ever increasingly international and demanding markets RESEARCh PARKS until now considered untouchable. Its • Knowledge and technology transfer: Publisher: Robert Kelley new model of industrial environments is STRPs stimulate and manage contacts [email protected] known by different names, although all between businesses and universities Designer: Carrie Reagh share many common denominators: they • Specialized services: intellectual prop- [email protected] are the science, technology, or research erty advice, access to international Printer: Dow Jones parks (STRPs). networks, use of labs and sophisticated LUIS SANz For more information about supplements Even though the quality of buildings scientific equipment, contact with in- Director General, CEO in the daily press, please contact: and infrastructures is much higher in vestors, venture and seed capital funds International Association of Science Parks Kayvan Salmanpour, 1 646 922 1400 [email protected]. these environments than in the traditional and many others ith the emergence of the in- industrial estates, the real estate element • Contamination-free and clean spaces This section was written by Mediaplanet and did not involve The Wall Street Journal dustrial economy, with its is not as important as the value received In addition to this, the presence of or Editorial Departments. huge factories and machines, by the business which comes from the business incubators makes STRPs an W this urban location had to be abandoned wide range of sophisticated services pro- environment where the dynamism of www.mediaplanet.com and moved to the outskirts of the cities to vided by the parks, such as: new entrepreneurs co-exists with the lessen the impact of their contaminating • Tenant quality: companies selected on experience of consolidated companies. Courtesy of the North Dakota State processes and high scale logistics. This was the basis of their technological and In its continuous evolution many parks University Research and Technology Park how the industrial estates came about. innovative capacity. Being in a park is also have cultural, residential and leisure The Knowledge Economy has broken an accreditation which is of increasing options which reinforce their attractive- many established concepts that were value worldwide ness not only towards businesses but also a very special thanks to... The Association of University Research Parks (AURP) is a professional association of university related research, sci- ence and technology parks. AURP’s mission is to foster innovation, commercialization and economic growth through university, industry and government partnerships. AURP’s membership includes planned and operating parks, many of which contain technology incubators. A variety of university, government, not-for-profit and private companies interested in the development and operation of high technology economic development projects also comprise AURP’s membership. For Innovation, Research Parks Just Work “If you put a lot of smart people in a given area, you get better commercialization. Biotech Cluster in Munich. “What you really designed to facilitate such serendipitous You get better economic development and more jobs,” says Brian Darmody, associate need is a creative environment, a kind of partnerships. playground which allows the scientists “They’re a broader group than just a vice president for economic development at the University of Maryland and current to work on their—in many cases—crazy landlord,” Mike Kaminski says of Cortex, president of the Association of University Research Parks. ideas and hypotheses.” He describes an a life sciences research park in St. Louis. “innovation culture” in Bavaria, where Kaminski is chief executive officer of more than 100 research groups from Stereotaxis, a publicly traded company t sounds obvious, but Darmody’s tion toward health care and high-tech, president of Delaware Technology Park, academia and industry are coming to- based at Cortex that makes magnetically assertion is an idea that’s still taking research parks have become economic agrees. “In these times, we’re puzzled gether to focus on the field of personal- controlled cardiac catheters and other Ihold. The first university research park hubs, in many ways replacing—and as to why we’re not getting more of a ized medicine and targeted therapies. medical devices. Stereotaxis was at- in the world was founded at Stanford improving on—the industrial park of old. federal look at that rather than bailing As for the civic benefits of research tracted to Cortex as a place to transform University in 1951, in part to connect GI Business incubator-type industries create out the old,” he says. “We’re bailing out parks, Darmody cites the example of technology developed at the University of Bill college graduates with well-paying 20 times more jobs than traditional infra- banks, we’re bailing out car companies, Dr. Rita Colwell, former director of the Virginia and the Livermore Laboratories in jobs. This model—a high-technology structure projects, and at good wages; and that’s not going to make us grow.” National Science Foundation and now a California into a commercial entity. private industry park in symbiosis with for example, the average salary at jobs While it’s true that knowledge can professor at the University of Maryland. At research parks, private industries and a research university—soon began to created by a research park in Philadelphia move across great distances with modern One of Colwell’s research interests is universities share equipment, employees thrive, and research parks appeared across is $89,000. communications infrastructure alone, in tracking the spread of cholera. Thanks to and ideas. Former students go to work the United States and the globe. “Research parks are part of the inno- practice there are countless obstacles to the draw of the University of Maryland for corporations, and former corporate “The very presence of a research park vation infrastructure, just like when the the kinds of collaboration that produce Research Park, the National Oceanic and At- employees become professors. Research implies inherently that a region or com- country was being founded,” Darmody true innovation. The gulfs between pure mospheric Administration (NOAA), whose Triangle Park hosts monthly luncheons for munity is working to develop top-of-the- says. “We built the Erie Canal and the academic research and private industry, bailiwick does not include infectious research directors featuring peer speak- food-chain, higher-end employment,” ob- transcontinental railroad, and we built and between different disciplines, often diseases, moved some of its offices in next ers; it also functions as an efficient orga- serves Rick Weddle, president and CEO of docks and piers and airports. In the inno- obstruct the kinds of coincidences and door. It turned out that NOAA software nizing principle for state infrastructure Research Triangle Park in North Carolina, vation economy, in the knowledge econ- accidental collaborations from which for modeling coastal water flows could investments, from North Carolina’s first the nation’s largest. “It’s a leading indica- omy, you need infrastructure like that.” essential new tools, medicines, software also be used to track cholera, a water- supercomputer in the 1980s to its biotech tor of economic growth, but it’s also a lag- Mike Bowman, chairman and and other advances are born. borne pathogen. Colwell discovered that center and business incubators today. As ging indicator of the level of cooperation But with the right approach these epidemiologists could use the software to Delaware’s Bowman observes, “A good re- that has existed in the region.” obstacles can be overcome, accord- predict cholera’s spread in weeks, rather search park is not like a moated castle; it’s With the economy’s ing to Horst Domdey, Managing than months, ultimately saving lives. more of a community asset.” increasing orienta- Director of the BioM Research parks are increasingly ©Clemson University 2008 University ©Clemson Romanek Properties, Ltd is actively seeking opportunities to invest in campus-anchored communities. Our current portfolio of Research & Technology Park properties includes: Champaign Research Park Discovery Ridge Research Park INTECH Park University of Illinois University of Missouri Certified Technology Park Champaign, IL Columbia, MO Indianapolis, IN To find out more about Romanek Properties, Ltd, please call 847.480.4600. Or visitwww.romprop.com . 15072 Romanek Ad_01Dec09.indd 1 12/1/09 11:16:58 AM 2 an independent supplement from mediaplanet