Public, private support key to knowledge economy

To launch a booming research hub, a city often needs more than a patch of underutilized property within shouting distance of a major university.
So Rhode Island leaders intent on jump-starting the creative economy here have been openly seeking advice from communities and organizations that have proven they can attract and develop technology companies.
“Giving them lab space is not enough,” said Jeanne Mell, vice president of marketing and communications at the University City Science Center in Philadelphia at a recent panel discussion on growing the Providence Knowledge District. “They need programs.”
At the University City Science Center, a 2 million-square-foot research park founded in 1963, those programs include business incubators, entrepreneurial support services and partnerships between 19 collaborative institutions.
Mell was one of three representatives of nonprofit venture groups to give their advice last week on what would help Rhode Island grow the so-called knowledge economy, at a panel discussion moderated by Gov. Lincoln D. Chafee, who wanted to know what role government could play.
All three organizations – Innovations at Cleveland Clinic, in Ohio, Innovation Works, in Pittsburgh, and University City Science Center – have all leveraged public money to become major investors and business incubators in their regions.
“State money fills in a very important gap between private funds,” said Chris Coburn, executive director of Cleveland Clinic Innovations. “The [public] support has made a difference.”
Innovations is the corporate venture-capital arm of Cleveland Clinic and since 2001 has spun off 35 companies in the health care sector which have raised a combined $450 million in private investment. Coburn said Innovations has received $150 million from the state of Ohio.
At Innovation Works in Pittsburgh, an early-stage business accelerator, President and CEO Rich Lunak said his organization has received state support spanning five governors but made it clear that while public investment is a catalyst, the private sector needs to lead the way toward economic growth and ultimately job creation. The panel discussion was the latest in a series of forums and fact-finding missions Chafee has led as part of the state’s marketing of the Knowledge District.
The same day, Chafee was part of a forum at Bryant University on the state of the Rhode Island economy. Earlier this year he led a delegation of Providence public and private-sector leaders on a tour of Baltimore’s biopark surrounding the University of Maryland Medical Center.
With development of the Knowledge District a top public priority and high-profile development opportunity, the panel drew representatives from the Rhode Island’s leading medical and educational institutions, the R.I. Economic Development Corp., the state’s congressional delegation and the Interstate 195 Redevelopment Commission.
When Dr. Steven A. Rasmussen, medical director of Butler Hospital, asked the panel what Providence leaders should look for from new Brown University President Christina Hull Paxson, the response was for a commitment to an entrepreneurial culture at the school.
Lunak said this could include allowing professors to start companies, to recruiting talent in targeted fields to create “centers of excellence.”
In the health care arena, Coburn said the “tectonic shifts” in the nation’s health care system are causing tremendous stress for all organizations involved in that sector, but have also created great opportunities for entrepreneurs ready to chase them.
All three members of the panel noted that Providence’s proximity to the New York and Boston capital markets was advantageous, as well as its compact geography and high concentration of knowledge-economy players.
Mell said one measure of a good research hub was how many face-to-face meetings you could make at different organizations before your morning cup of coffee got cold.
“You are in a good spot,” Mell said. “A lot of our incubators (at the Science Center research park) are there for proximity to the universities.” •

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