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Credit: David Baker

First off, what exactly is a university research park?

A university research park is a real estate entity that is attached to, run by and owned by a university—or directly adjacent to a university—and has been created for the purpose of undertaking both active university research and in promoting the growth of companies using the intellectual property generated by those research centers, medical schools, teaching hospitals, et cetera. A research park, while it may have university labs located in the park, is mainly focused on the promotion of for-profit companies.

How have these parks changed in recent years?

In the 1970s, '80s and '90s, research parks were mainly places for the co-location of corporate entities that wanted to be near universities. Now the emphasis is on a combination of having companies locate their facilities in these parks but also on the incubation of new companies with intellectual property that has been generated either by the university or by people near the university. There's the development of more multi-tenant buildings as compared to more stand-alone individual tenant buildings. I've seen it just by visiting parks across the country.

What do you think is driving that?

I think it's the pressure for more economic development in urban spaces. [Governments and universities] have started to look at the big urban campuses of the major research centers for the location of these parks. Most recently you see it in Baltimore, for instance, with the research park at Johns Hopkins University.

Why do companies join research parks these days?

The biggest challenge for a little company is to gain access to high-quality research equipment, people, students and consultants at a very low price. So when you're in the space of developing a product through biomedicine, you're particularly challenged, particularly at the early stage because you need the most sophisticated equipment available to high-end university research labs, but you can't buy that equipment yourself. The role of the parks is to act as a broker with the university to establish access to these facilities [with this equipment]. You wouldn't even imagine these companies growing up without this kind of accommodation. And usually there's a faculty member whose research is being developed into a company. They obviously want to have the startup company nearby them so that they can be involved in it and provide the scientific guidance.

What types of policy does your organization advocate?

We have been quite involved in policy the last several years. We were able to help establish a provision in the America Competes Act that authorizes loan guarantees for university research parks that are building major facilities. The program is in place—it passed—but the appropriation has to be reauthorized in 2013.

Financial times are tough, though. Do you see the US government scaling back its financial support for research parks?

Inevitably. I think there's going to be less capital funding available with the federal government trying to deal with the deficit. Europe is a little different. The have all the same challenges, but they seem bent on continuing to provide subsidies for the emergence of science parks, particularly in the new EU countries. I certainly saw that in Poland and the Czech Republic when I visited there recently. [The EU] is talking about a new round of funding in 2014.

You're putting together a five-year plan. What are you hoping to achieve?

Many of our science parks [in the US] depend on private-sector investments, for the companies at least. We have a variety of funding strategies for our buildings, including boosting private-sector input with various types of tax incentives, as opposed to direct subsidies here in the US. So I see that as a major area of focus. Another area that I think we're going to be working on is the evolution of our research parks as live, workplace environments—bringing in restaurants, condos, schools, that kind of thing—particularly for the bigger parks.

Why so?

People want to live near work. The first test of this, like that seen [at the University Park at MIT] in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has been very successful. So this is another strategic area for investigation that we may be looking at in terms of programming. Because what this does is change the character of the money needed [to build the park] and the kind of developer you're going to use. It requires the more sophisticated partnerships where you're looking residential real estate developers being involved with you rather than just commercial real estate developers or laboratory developers. This is a kind of mix that many of us have not been involved with before.