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Hunt Lambert was selected as the new associate vice president for economic development in the Colorado State University system.

Jim Pennekamp will be the executive director of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville's research and business park, effective Dec. 1.

John Reardon will be new Charles County Economic Development Department chief in Maryland, effective in December.

Steven Weathers is the new president and CEO of the Regional Growth Partnership in Toledo, Ohio.

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?

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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?

 

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.

Colorado The Rocky Mountain Technology Alliance (RMTA) is a recently formed regional development organization for applied research and technology development whose membership includes universities, government organizations and private businesses.

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.

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.

 

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.

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.

Over the past several months, universities, city and state governments, and private companies alike have announced the creation of high-tech incubators that will serve as springboards for developing specialized companies to help grow the regional economy. Following is a sampling of recent incubator news from across the nation.

 

At $453.28, the District of Columbia led the nation in federal R&D obligations per capita to colleges and universities in 2005, according to recent National Science Foundation (NSF) report. For the U.S. as a whole, the per capita amount rose 25.8 percent from 2001 to 2005.

The Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development, in concert with the Pennsylvania State University, are presenting the inaugural Creating Pennsylvania’s Future: A Higher Education, Economic and Community Development Summit, aimed at energizing institutions of higher education, busi

Jim Aanstoos is the new economic development director for the city of San Marcos, Texas.

John Adams, director of the Laredo Development Foundation, will become the new director of Enterprise Florida.

Jim Aanstoos is the new economic development director for the city of San Marcos, Texas.

John Adams, director of the Laredo Development Foundation, will become the new director of Enterprise Florida.

Steve Biggers has been promoted to Deputy Director for the Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science & Technology.

Warren Erdman, formerly vice president of corporate affairs at Kansas City Southern, is the newly selected chairman of the board of the Economic Development Corp. of Kansas City.

Michael Finney, CEO of Greater Rochester Enterprise, is leaving to become president and CEO of Ann Arbor SPARK.

Dennis "Mickey" Flynn is the new president of Pennsylvania BIO.