 | This article contains content that is written like an advertisement .(March 2014) |
Innovista is the economic development arm of the University of South Carolina.
| This article contains content that is written like an advertisement .(March 2014) |
Innovista is the economic development arm of the University of South Carolina.
The Innovation District is the physical campus of Innovista: 500 acres in the heart of downtown Columbia. The infrastructure is supported by the City of Columbia. A research park akin to ones developed around the country, which have, at their economic core, a research university: Research Triangle Park (Duke, UNC and NC State, North Carolina) and Silicon Valley (Stanford), the Innovation District will draw on the intellectual power of the University.
Innovista is also an urban plan to transform the area bordered by the Congaree River and Assembly, Blossom and Gervais Streets into a "vibrant place" to Live, Learn, Earn and Play in the heart of the city. [1] The Innovista plan includes The Innovation District, where technical and creative talent can live and work, and the planned Waterfront District, a 100-acre Riverfront Park along the Congaree River with an outdoor amphitheater, bicycle and pedestrian paths.
In 2005, the concept of Innovista was created by then-USC President Dr. Andrew Sorenson; Dr. Harris Pastides, then-USC Vice President for Research and Health Sciences and current USC President; and then-Columbia Mayor Bob Coble. At the time, USC research funding was growing significantly and the Carnegie Foundation had designated the university as an institution of "very high research activity," its highest distinction given only to 62 public research institutions. USC's signature research areas include hydrogen fuel cells and other alternative energies, health sciences, nanotechnology and material sciences; environmental sciences, and software and technology.
Innovista's initial plans called for construction of four buildings. Horizon I and Discovery I: designed for academic research; and companion buildings Horizon II and Discovery II: designed for private development and commercial firms. The public buildings were partially constructed and first occupied in 2009, however, funding to complete these buildings was not available until late 2011. Horizon I and Discovery I are currently home to several internationally renowned researchers.
The construction of the private buildings experienced obstacles including the failure of two private developers to obtain sufficient financing and the 2009 controversial firing of the second developer. In 2011, several existing private buildings were designated as preferred locations for Innovista affiliated firms including the Tower at 1301 Gervais Street also known as IT-oLogy @ Innovista; the USC-Columbia Technology Incubator; the SCRA USC Innovation Center; Midlands Technical College Business Accelerator; and IdeaLabs.
The South Carolina General Assembly passed a series of legislative acts designed to help South Carolina research institutions develop world-class research for commercialization. The Centers of Economic Excellence Act [2] helped USC attract an array of internationally recognized scientists through the associated public/private multimillion-dollar Centers of Economic Excellence Program. The Research University Infrastructure Act provided $58 million originally and another $14 million in additional funding to help finance the construction of the Horizon I and Discovery I buildings, and the Partners Act of 2006 assists high-tech firms and university startups find grant and seed funding.
The University of South Carolina's Arnold School of Public Health is a leader in biomedical research, health disparities, bioterrorism preparedness, and disease prevention. In 2006, the Arnold School opened its new $26 million LEED-certified research facility on Assembly Street with additional space in the Discovery I building on Greene Street.
USC's Darla Moore School of Business, whose undergraduate international business program ranks number 1 in the nation, was relocating to the Innovation District, at Assembly and Greene Streets, to a new $90 million structure scheduled for completion by December 2013. [3] [4]
University of South Carolina professor Ken Reifsnider, a member of the National Academy of Engineers and the Scientific Advisory Board for the U.S. Air Force, creates high-performing, lower-cost composite alternatives for aerospace applications. His work has helped spawn a new Lightning Response Laboratory at the SCRA USC Innovation Center, which will refine the understanding of how modern aircraft and other structures are affected by electrical storms. [5] This advanced material research will have implications for commercial airline manufacturers such as Boeing, which recently opened a manufacturing facility in North Charleston, South Carolina.
With the help of Innovista and leaders from the University and the S.C. Department of Commerce, USC alums Bill and Lou Kennedy are expanding their Florida-based company, Nephron Pharmaceuticals, to the Midlands with a $313 million manufacturing plant in Lexington, South Carolina scheduled for completion in 2014. [6]
The USC Columbia Technology Incubator is home to many university startup companies. To date, the Incubator has graduated 31 companies from its program and created 754 jobs with an average salary of more than $63,000. [7]
Columbia is the capital city of the U.S. state of South Carolina. With a population of 136,632 at the 2020 census, it is the second-most populous city in South Carolina. The city serves as the county seat of Richland County, and a portion of the city extends into neighboring Lexington County. It is the center of the Columbia, SC Metropolitan Statistical Area, which had a population of 829,470 in 2020 and is the 7th-most populous urban center in the Deep South and the 72nd-most populous metropolitan statistical area in the nation. The name Columbia is a poetic term used for the United States, derived from the name of Christopher Columbus, who explored for the Spanish Crown. Columbia is often abbreviated as Cola, leading to its nickname as "Soda City".
The University of Missouri System is an American state university system providing centralized administration for four universities, a health care system, an extension program, and ten research and technology parks. Nearly 70,000 students are currently enrolled at its four campuses. The health care system operates several hospitals and clinics in central Missouri, while the extension program provides distance learning and other educational initiatives statewide.
Technology transfer (TT), also called transfer of technology (TOT), is the process of transferring (disseminating) technology from the person or organization that owns or holds it to another person or organization, in an attempt to transform inventions and scientific outcomes into new products and services that benefit society. Technology transfer is closely related to knowledge transfer.
A science park is defined as being a property-based development that accommodates and fosters the growth of tenant firms and that is affiliated with a university based on proximity, ownership, and/or governance. This is so that knowledge can be shared, innovation promoted, technology transferred, and research outcomes progressed to viable commercial products. Science parks are also often perceived as contributing to national economic development, stimulating the formation of new high-technology firms, attracting foreign investment and promoting exports.
The University of South Carolina is a public research university in Columbia, South Carolina. It is the flagship of the University of South Carolina System and the largest university in the state by enrollment. Its main campus is on over 359 acres (145 ha) in downtown Columbia, close to the South Carolina State House. The university is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities with Highest Research Activity". It houses the largest collection of Robert Burns and Scottish literature materials outside Scotland and the world's largest Ernest Hemingway collection.
A business incubator is an organization that helps startup companies and individual entrepreneurs to develop their businesses by providing a fullscale range of services starting with management training and office space and ending with venture capital financing. The National Business Incubation Association (NBIA) defines business incubators as a catalyst tool for either regional or national economic development. NBIA categorizes its members' incubators by the following five incubator types: academic institutions; non-profit development corporations; for-profit property development ventures; venture capital firms, and a combination of the above.
Innovation Quarter in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, formerly Wake Forest Innovation Quarter, is an innovation district focused on research, business, and education in biomedical science, information technology, digital media, clinical services, and advanced materials. The Innovation Quarter, operated by Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, is home to academic groups, private companies and other organizations located on 330 acres in downtown Winston-Salem. Its tenants include departments from five academic institutions—Wake Forest School of Medicine, Wake Forest University, Forsyth Technical Community College, Winston-Salem State University, UNC School of the Arts— as well as private businesses and other organizations. One tenant is the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM), which is working to engineer more than 30 different replacement tissues and organs and to develop healing cell therapies. The science and research conducted at WFIRM is behind two start-up companies at Innovation Quarter. The ability of researchers and scientists to work alongside entrepreneurs furthers a goal of Innovation Quarter to develop new treatments and cures for disease and advances in technology.
MaRS Discovery District is a not-for-profit corporation founded in Toronto, Ontario, Canada in 2000. Its stated goal is to commercialize publicly funded medical research and other technologies with the help of local private enterprises and as such is a public-private partnership. As part of its mission MaRS says, "MaRS helps create successful global businesses from Canada's science, technology and social innovation." As of 2014, startup companies emerging from MaRS had created more than 4,000 jobs, and in the period of 2011 to 2014 had raised over $750 million in capital investments.
The UCSC Silicon Valley Initiatives are a series of educational and research activities which together increase the presence of the University of California in Silicon Valley. To that end, UC Santa Cruz has set up a 90,000 square-foot satellite campus called the University of Santa Cruz Silicon Valley Campus (SVC), currently located on Bowers street in Santa Clara, California, where it has been since April 2016 The Initiatives, still in the early stages of their development, have had ambitious hopes attached to them by UCSC, among them the possibility of a home for the University's long-planned graduate school of management and the Bio|Info|Nano R&D Institute. It currently houses professional the SVLink incubator-accelerator program, programs and a distance education site for the UCSC Baskin School of Engineering, the UCSC Silicon Valley Extension, the Office of Industry Alliances and Technology Commercialization leadership, and the University of California's online learning program, UC Scout.
The California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2, previously Cal(IT)2), also referred to as the Qualcomm Institute (QI) at its San Diego branch, is a $400 million academic research institution jointly run by the University of California San Diego (UC San Diego) and the University of California, Irvine (UCI); in January 2022, plans were announced to add University of California, Riverside to the consortium. Calit2 was established in 2000 as one of the four UC Gray Davis Institutes for Science and Innovation. As a multidisciplinary research institution, it is conducting research discovering new ways in which emerging technologies can improve the state's economy and citizens' quality of life. Keeping in mind its goal of addressing large-scale societal issues, Calit2 extends beyond education and research by also focusing on the development and deployment of prototype infrastructure for testing new solutions in real-world environments. Calit2 also provides an academic research environment in which students can work alongside industry professionals to take part in conducting research and prototyping and testing new technologies.
The California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences (QB3) is a nonprofit research and technology commercialization institute affiliated with three University of California campuses in the San Francisco Bay Area: Berkeley, San Francisco, and Santa Cruz. QB3's domain is the quantitative biosciences: areas of biology in which advances are chiefly made by scientists applying techniques from physics, chemistry, engineering, and computer science.
The Louisiana Business & Technology Center (LBTC) at Louisiana State University plays an important role to the state's flagship university, Louisiana State University as a part of LSU's Office of Research and Economic Development. LBTC's primary goal is to increase the economic growth of Louisiana by enhancing the development of small businesses and assisting in the development of new businesses. The center is ranked among the top ten entrepreneur programs in the nation. In 1988 it was jointly funded through LSU and the Greater Baton Rouge Chamber of Commerce to foster economic growth in Louisiana by providing businesses with applications and tools necessary for growth and survival in the real world. It comprises the Louisiana Technology Transfer Office (LTTO), the LBTC Business Incubator, and the LSU Student Incubator.
LA Cleantech Incubator (LACI) is the City of Los Angeles's official cleantech business incubator established to accelerate the commercialization of clean technology and job creation in the Los Angeles region. LACI's staff of entrepreneurs, market specialists, and researchers combined with its 60+ mentor/advisor network provide expert advice on a full range of issues facing early to growth stage companies, including CEO coaching, financial modeling, business development, IP, and more. The organization is run "by entrepreneurs, for entrepreneurs" and pursues public objectives by harnessing private methods and resources. In 2014, LACI was ranked by UBI Global as the Number 6 university-affiliated business incubator in the world out of 800+ incubators in 67 countries.
McMaster Innovation Park (MIP) is an innovation and research facility located approximately two kilometres east of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. McMaster Innovation Park focuses on supporting startups, business, research through providing property management services as well as business aid. Entrepreneurs, firms, researchers, industry partners, business mentors and support facilities are the main customers of the firm. MIP currently houses five buildings: the Atrium@MIP, CanmetMATERIALS, McMaster Automotive Resource Centre (MARC), Biomedical Engineering and Advanced Manufacturing (BEAM) project centre and envisions 10 buildings on site within 10 years with 1,500–1,800 people working full-time.
Innovation districts are urban geographies of innovation where R&D strong institutions, companies, and other private actors develop integrated strategies and solutions to develop thriving innovation ecosystems–areas that attract entrepreneurs, startups, and business incubators. Unlike science parks, innovation districts are physically compact, leverage density and high levels of accessibility, and provide a “mash up” of activities including housing, office, and neighborhood-serving amenities. Districts signify the collapse back of innovation into cities and is increasingly used as a way to revitalize the economies of cities and their broader regions. As of 2019, there are more than 100 districts worldwide.
Research Park at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is a research park located in the southwest part of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus in Champaign, Illinois. Research Park is a technology hub for startup companies and corporate research and development operations. Within Research Park there are more than 120 companies employing more than 2,100 people including students and full-time technology professionals.
The SETsquared Partnership, usually known simply as SETsquared, is a business incubation network run by five universities in Southern England. SETsquared stands for Southern England Technology Triangle. The partnership was formed in 2002, between the University of Bath, the University of Bristol, the University of Southampton and the University of Surrey. The University of Exeter joined the partnership in 2011.
CIIE.CO is an Indian startup accelerator and incubator that supports early-stage startups located at IIM Ahmedabad in Ahmedabad, India. It was founded in 2002 to promote innovation and entrepreneurship in India. It is a Center of excellence set up at Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad with support from the Government of India's Department of Science and Technology and the Government of Gujarat.
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