By Emily Ford and Holly Fesperman Lee Salisbury Post KANNAPOLIS--When David H. Murdock announced he was building a $1.5 billion research campus, many people worried about the impact on research parks already under way at several North Carolina universities. But it was clear at Tuesday's higher education summit that there's plenty of research to go around. From start-up companies to spin-offs, from translational medicine to technology transfer, seven North Carolina universities plus Murdock's N.C. Research Campus detailed their efforts to recruit business and industry onto their campuses. Every school at the summit, which was sponsored by U.S. Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., and held in downtown Kannapolis, has a research park under way. Often called "millennial" or "centennial" campuses, these research parks feature large tracts set aside for academic and business use, as well as residential and even retail space. All are designed to foster partnerships between a university and private industry, with the goal of launching new businesses and securing patents. The N.C. Research Campus may be the ultimate example of a public-private partnership, with Murdock and his Dole Food Co. collaborating with six UNC system schools and Duke University. "Our goal is to build on what is already in development in North Carolina," said Lynne Scott Safrit, president of campus developer Castle & amp; Cooke. "We want to be a partner to each of you." Speakers were flanked by flags from the seven participating universities. Each gave a presentation about economic development efforts. Here are the highlights: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Mark Crowell said just adding the words "economic development" to his vice chancellor title has been a conversation-starter in his travels around the world. UNC-Chapel Hill has embraced the entrepreneurial spirit, as evidenced by a partnership with DuPont that created a new, more environmentally friendly Teflon. The school's new Innovation Center will be a business incubator "on steroids," Crowell said. "We're not just going to place companies there and hope they incubate. We're going to put them there and accelerate them," he said. Carolina North, a 250-acre mixed use research community, is under development in Chapel Hill. University of North Carolina at Charlotte This was the first university to move into a temporary office in Cannon Village. Bob Wilhelm, director of the UNC-Charlotte Research Institute, said he's glad to have some company. The college has a list of start-up companies and research initiatives to its credit, as well as a millennial campus in Charlotte that includes commercial development sites and a stop on the new light rail line. UNC-Charlotte's major contribution in Kannapolis will be providing bioinformatics, or the science of digesting massive amounts of data produced by the Core Lab. "Bioinformatics will make UNC-Charlotte a key player in the intellectual community here," Wilhelm said. Western Carolina University Still in the planning phase for a research campus, this small university has taken a different approach than its larger counterparts. Western's millennial campus will feature four "neighborhoods," each with a different theme: education, health, business and engineering/technology. The neighborhoods will be self-sustainable, including classrooms, a library, housing, retail and even a student center. Western already has been working with local inventors with some success, General Counsel Rich Kucharski said. An orthopedic surgeon who invented a way to help knee-replacement patients exercise worked with Western engineering students to create a medical device. They are filing patent applications this week and will market it. N.C. State University Bringing real-world products to market is the focus of N.C. State's Centennial Campus. Centennial Campus is a mixed-use academic village bringing together academic, industrial and government entities. More than 100 commercially-available products have moved from Centennial Campus labs and benches to consumers' daily lives since the first building opened in 1989. Centennial Campus has 2,000 corporate and government employees, 1,200 university faculty, staff and post-doctoral students, 3,500 university students and 600 Wake County middle school students. It's projected the campus will grow to 12,500 corporate and government employees, 12,500 university faculty, staff and post-doctoral students, 7,000 residential residents, 600 middle school students and 2,400 support services personnel. Wake Forest University The Piedmont Triad Research Park is "where innovation lives." The idea for the research park started in the early 1990s, and by 2001 the park had about four buildings on 10 acres in downtown Winston-Salem. The park has grown to 240 acres but is projected to have 6 million square feet of space with three districts in the future. It will be North Carolina's largest urban life sciences park. University of North Carolina at Greensboro and North Carolina A & amp;T State University These two universities have partnered to create Gateway University Research Park. The schools anticipate three buildings going up in the next 11/2 years on 75 acres on South Campus off Lee Street in Greensboro. The North Campus section of Gateway used to be a school for deaf children. Eight buildings there are being renovated. The campus will focus on basic research, drug design, chronic diseases, nanobiosciences and human performance. Contact Emily Ford at eford@salisburypost.com and Holly Lee at hlee@salisburypost.com.
|
