SSTI Digest

Edison had Menlo Park. Monet had the gardens at Giverny. Ubiquitous computing had PARC. To what extent were the great things that happened at each of these localities influenced by the places themselves? 

 

Reducing that question to economic development policy terms: Can the places of great creations be created by design?

 

In this issue of the SSTI Weekly Digest, we examine how the design and planning of physical space can influence scientific discovery, individuals and research groups, and the performance of technology-based economic development (TBED) organizations. We combine concepts from many fields – including architecture, urban planning and, of course, economic development – to present various perspectives that may be of interest to the TBED community.

 

Building structures that contain laboratory space are becoming an important component of many entities pursuing TBED strategies. Research spaces such as cleanrooms and wetlabs pop up throughout universities, but they also are being constructed within research parks and business incubators.

 

As the limits of our scientific knowledge continually expand, does the design of buildings housing these laboratories need to evolve as well? New technologies require understanding and input across multiple disciplines. Reductionism as the preferred approach for scientific discovery is giving way toward the convergence of knowledge across fields, or "consilience" as E.O. Wilson and others have called it. Perhaps the way to orient the physical environment around researchers can be configured such that U.S. innovators become more innovative.

 

The theory of spatial clustering has been very popular in the TBED field for many years, as researchers attempt to explain the transformation of places like Silicon Valley and the reasons various locales are economically competitive. Practitioners have utilized the theory as a method to describe their own state and regional economies and to support the development of specific industries. As an industry cluster grows, additional benefits of agglomeration are realized.

 

These benefits include the creation of a localized skilled pool of labor, saving funds from sharing infrastructure and reduced costs of transactions, and knowledge spillovers which create more rapid sharing of information across an industry. The geographic reach of clusters, a subject still under investigation by the research community, sometimes varies by size depending who is using the term. In some studies, clusters are at the state level, while others cluster studies are limited to the regional or even neighborhood level.

 

The physical layouts of many colleges and universities across North America are undergoing dramatic changes as more and more relationships develop outside of the traditional boundaries of institutions of higher learning. As public-private partnerships are established, additional research parks are being built on or adjacent to campus, and in some cases, empty space is designed into new academic and research buildings to accommodate future spin-off companies and incubating firms.

 

Numerous universities also are trying to productively manage the development of their physical space. The New York Times reported last month in a story titled “Sun Belt Growth Is Playing Out on Campus” that soaring population growth is drastically expanding enrollment and campus size in locations across the country. For example, seven years ago, Arizona State University was at 50,000 students. It is up to 64,000 students today and plans to grow to 90,000 students by 2020. With this in mind, balancing quality with quantity may be a challenge for school administrators.

 

The establishment and maintenance of research parks has been a strategy for many organizations to strengthen TBED within their regions. This strategy continues to grow, as announcements for new research parks and the expansion of established ones take place all over the U.S. and Canada. But looking at these research parks in aggregate, what can we learn about them? And what can current developments tell us about the design of research parks in the future?

 

A study released at this year’s Association of University Research Parks (AURP) National Conference in St. Louis sheds light on these questions. Prepared by Battelle Technology Partnership Practice in partnership with AURP, Characteristics and Trends in North American Research Parks: 21st Century Directions states about 300,000 people work in research parks, with the parks occupying a combined 124 million sq. ft. in 1,833 buildings.

 

Throughout this special issue of the Digest, we’ve explored how future trends in design may affect how TBED practitioners advance the field and how altering the organization of the physical components around us – from laboratory space to economic development organizations – may impact innovative performance. It seems an emerging field, one that is sought in the design community and one that may be welcomed by the customers of design services, is the practice of evaluating the spaces that are intended to produce innovation.

 

A handful of competitiveness reports have been released in the past two weeks, each comparing various geographic locations and incorporating a range of innovation metrics. Perhaps the publication garnering the most international press has been The Global Competitiveness Report 2007-2008 by the World Economic Forum. Produced since 1979, this year’s version of the Report includes the Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index, which incorporates 12 “pillars of competitiveness” consisting of roughly 120 variables to rank 131 countries. These pillars range from Infrastructure and Macroeconomic Stability to more advanced groupings such as Technological Readiness and Innovation.

In support of his New Energy Economy Initiative, Gov. Bill Ritter introduced last week a statewide action plan to expand renewable energy opportunities and reduce the impact of climate change.

 

Two key components of the plan include R&D for coal, natural gas and renewable energy and fostering an educated workforce. Under the plan, the state will partner with research institutions and industry to expand R&D in these areas and develop clean-coal technologies. No additional funding is requested in the governor’s fiscal year 2008-09 budget proposal for these initiatives; however, the key departments involved in the action plan have committed to using existing funds to implement the action items.

 

Hawaii's research and investment tax credits for high-tech companies have been a issue of debate for nearly a decade. In a survey conducted earlier this year, 45 percent of a sample of high-tech business owners said these credits played a "major influence" in their decision to grow and expand in Hawaii. Opponents, however, claim that the program's generous tax breaks overstep their bounds by extending incentives to movie and television companies.

 

A new report from the Hawaii Department of Taxation suggests that, despite these concerns, the two credits have been successful in generating greater technology investment. The department claims that participating businesses attracted more than $821 million in investment, paid out $506 million in salaries, and have been a major driver of technology business in Hawaii since the credits were introduced.

 

Despite pioneering the development of the Internet and the World Wide Web, the U.S. for years has lagged behind other industrialized countries in offering broadband services to its citizens. The U.S. ranks 16th in per capita broadband subscribers, and even when Americans do receive high-speed Internet services, they frequently pay more for lower speeds that their counterparts in Asia and Europe. A new report from the Alliance for Public Technology, the third in a series of reports on U.S. broadband, calls attention to the need for improved broadband services and provides some examples of states and regions that have stepped in to make sure that their economies benefit from the Internet revolution.