Science park

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A science park is a property development designed for a concentration of high tech, science, or research related businesses. The definition of a science park is not entirely clear, but typically businesses and organizations in the parks focus on product advancement and innovation as opposed to industrial parks that focus on manufacturing and business parks that focus on administration. Often, science parks are associated with or operated by institutions of higher education (colleges and universities). Science parks are found all over the world, but are mostly concentrated in developed countries; over 140 are found in North America alone. Prominent examples include the Hsinchu Science Park in Taiwan and the Cambridge Science Park in England.

There are many approximate synonyms for "science park", including research park, technology park, technopolis, science centre and biomedical park. The appropriate term typically depends on the type of science and research in which the park's entities engage, but many of these developments are named according to which term gives the park the best profitability and naming advantages. These parks differ from typical high-technology business districts in that science parks and the like are more organized, planned, and managed.

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[edit] History

The world's first science park started in the early 1950s and foreshadowed the community known today as Silicon Valley. Another early science park set out to stop the "brain drain" from a rural, agricultural region, which was then dependent on the tobacco industry. Today Research Triangle Park, and the area around Raleigh and Durham, N.C., is home to many of the world's most advanced high technology businesses. These businesses employ over 40,000 people.

Science parks provide the launch pad that startup companies need when they are "spun out" from a university or company. Park-provided training in such areas as intellectual property law and business planning help the fledgling businesses to succeed. Universities, in turn, benefit by exposure to the business world, and the connection to the cutting-edge research being conducted outside their walls in industry. What all science parks have in common is that they are, at heart, knowledge partnerships that foster innovation.

As science parks harness the combined power of education, research and private investment, the result is new jobs, new industries and solutions to age-old problems of mankind. They connect the innovative thinkers of our time and harness the most powerful resource of the 21st century: mind power.

Science parks are sources of entrepreneurship, talent, and economic competitiveness for our nation, and are key elements of the infrastructure supporting the growth of today's global knowledge economy. By providing a location in which government, universities and private companies cooperate and collaborate, science parks create environments that foster collaboration and innovation. They enhance the development, transfer, and commercialization of technology.

More than 300,000 workers in North America work in university science parks. And according to the soon-to-be released AURP-Battelle Technology Practice report, every job in a science park generates an average of an additional 2.57 jobs in the economy.[citation needed]*

While parks vary widely in size and shape, from urban high-rises to suburban or rural locations, a typical American science park is located in a suburban community with a population of less than 500,000 and is operated by a university or a university- affiliated non-profit organization.

The companies in this typical science park are primarily private sector, but the science park is also home to university and government facilities. It is the combination of these three interacting elements: government, the university, and private sector companies-- that gives parks their dynamism.

The typical park provides a range of business startup assistance to its client companies, which are often small startups based on innovative new ideas from university or private sector researchers. The park has an operating budget of less than $1 million a year. Because it is designed as a non-profit entity, the park itself does not generate significant net revenue. 750 people work at jobs there, primarily at information technology companies, pharmaceutical firms, or scientific and engineering service providers. These sorts of companies provide 45 percent of all science park jobs.

A new model, which is strategically planned mixed-use campus expansions, is emerging and involves shared space in which industry and academic researchers can work side by side. These university-affiliated mixed-use campus developments are not simply real-estate ventures. They embody a commitment by universities to partake in broader activities, offering companies high-value sites for accessing researchers, specialized facilities, and students, and promoting live-work-play environments. Key features of these mixed-use developments include space for significant future research growth; multi-tenant facilities to house researchers and companies; and housing, along with other amenities which are attractive to young faculty, post-doctoral and graduate students.

Centennial Campus at North Carolina State University is a case in point. In the 1980s, pressure for space at the main North Carolina State University (NCSU) campus in Raleigh led to exploration of nearby options, including substantial holdings by the state mental-health system and the Diocese of Raleigh on 1,000 acres (4.0 km²) surrounding the old Lake Raleigh Reservoir. Starting in the 1980s, the land was conveyed to NCSU in stages, and serious planning began with the appointment of a former dean of the university’s School of Design to the position of campus coordinator.

At the outset, Centennial was conceived as a “smart growth” community that would incorporate a live-work environment and minimize the need for driving, through a connection to the main campus. The plan for Centennial evolved into a unique combination of institutional and commercial space side-by-side in a dual use “campus of the future.” The campus is divided into “neighborhoods” serving diverse high-tech sectors, each focusing on programmatic strengths of the university.

First to move was the College of Textiles, followed by the research components of the College of Engineering and units of other colleges. Then in 2002, some 200 additional acres already owned by the University and home to its College of Veterinary Medicine were renamed “Centennial Biomedical Campus” and will be developed using the Centennial Campus model, one that is being emulated throughout the world in new science park design.

Science parks are also being developed to leverage the assets of non-university research and development organizations such as federal laboratories. In addition to universities, major medical research centers and other research organizations can be key drivers of technology-based economic development. It is becoming increasingly common for communities in which a federal laboratory is located to create a science park to leverage laboratory resources to realize economic development.

Federal laboratories attract companies that wish to leverage the expertise of the laboratory researchers and to gain access to highly specialized, and often unique, facilities and equipment. Science parks can also provide a location for start-up companies created to commercialize technology developed in the labs.

Sandia Science and Technology Park, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Research Park at Ames, and the Tri-Cities Science and Technology Park located close to the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory are examples of research parks that have been developed by or adjacent to federal laboratories. Another example is the East Tennessee Technology Park at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Other examples of U.S. science parks are the Cummings Research Park in Huntsville, Alabama, and the Purdue Research Park in West Lafayette, Indiana. Begun in 1962, Cummings today is home to 285 companies which employ over 25,000 employees, and Purdue, founded in the late 1990’s, is today home to over 140 companies on the main campus alone [1].

Science parks are succeeding in incubating and growing companies. According to the Battelle report, nearly 800 firms graduated from park incubators in the past five years, while only thirteen percent failed. About one-quarter of these graduates remain in their park. Fewer than ten percent of the graduates left the region.

And since science park jobs generate an additional 2.57 jobs, according to Battelle, the total employment impact of all science parks in the US and Canada is more than 750,000 jobs.[citation needed]

[edit] Management

The Cabral Dahab Science Park Management Paradigm, first presented by Regis Cabral as ten points in 1990, has been influential in the management of science parks around the world and lays down the following conditions for a property development to be considered a science park. According to the management paradigm, a science park must:

  1. Have access to qualified research and development personnel in the areas of knowledge in which the park has its identity.
  2. Be able to market its high valued products and services.
  3. Have the capability to provide marketing expertise and managerial skills to firms, particularly Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, lacking such a resource.
  4. Be inserted in a society that allows for the protection of product or process secrets, via patents, security or any other means.
  5. Be able to select or reject which firms enter the park. The firm's business plan is expected to be coherent with the science park identity.
  6. Have a clear identity, quite often expressed symbolically, as the park's name choice, its logo or the management discourse.
  7. Have a management with established or recognised expertise in financial matters, and which has presented long term economic development plans.
  8. Have the backing of powerful, dynamic and stable economic actors, such as a funding agency, political institution or local university.
  9. Include in its management an active person of vision, with power of decision and with high and visible profile, who is perceived by relevant actors in society as embodying the interface between academia and industry, long-term plans and good management.
  10. Include a prominent percentage of consultancy firms, as well as technical service firms, including laboratories and quality control firms.

The Association of University Research Parks (AURP), a non-profit association made up of university-affiliated research parks, defines university research and science parks as a property-based venture, which has certain characteristics, of which include:

  1. Master planned property and buildings designed primarily for private/public research and development facilities, high technology and science based companies, and support services.
  2. A contractual, formal or operational relationship with one or more science/research institutions of higher education.
  3. A role in promoting the university's research and development through industry partnerships, assisting in the growth of new ventures and promoting economic development
  4. A role in aiding the transfer of technology and business skills between university and industry teams A role in promoting technology-led economic development for the community or region.

According to the AURP, the park may be a not-for-profit or for-profit entity owned wholly or partially by a university or a university related entity. Alternatively, the park may be owned by a non-university entity but have a contractual or other formal relationship with a university, including joint or cooperative ventures between a privately developed research park and a university. [2][3]

The International Association of Science Parks explains that the purpose of these parks is to promote the economic development and competitiveness of cities and regions by creating new business, adding value to companies, and creating new knowledge-based jobs. [4]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Purdue Research Park
  2. ^ Innovation America: AURP article
  3. ^ AURP: What is a research park?
  4. ^ International Association of Science Parks: About science and technology parks
  • Cabral, R. and Dahab, S. S. (1993) 'Science Parks in Developing Countries: The Case of BIORIO in Brazil'. In Biotechnology Review No. 1: The Management and Economic Potential of Biotechnology, vol. 1, pp. 165-178.
  • Echols, A. E. and Meredith, J. W. (1998) 'A Case Study of the Virginia Tech Corporation Research Centre in the context of the Cabral-Dahab Paradigm, with Comparison to Other US Research Parks', Int. J. Technology Management, Vol. 16, pp. 761-777.
  • Cabral, R. (1998) 'Refining the Cabral-Dahab Science Park Management Paradigm', Int. J. Technology Management, Vol. 16, pp. 813-818.
  • Cabral, R (ed.) (2003) The Cabral-Dahab Science Park Management Paradigm in Asia-Pacific, Europe and the Americas, Uminova Centre, Umeå, Sweden.
  • Cabral, R. (2003) 'Development, Science and' in Heilbron, J. (ed.), The Oxford Companion to The History of Modern Science, Oxford University Press, New York, pp. 205-207.
  • AURP-Batelle, Eileen Walker,"University Research Parks Contribute to Economic

Competitiveness: AURP-Battelle Report", http://www.aurp.net/more/pr102607.cfm

[edit] External links

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