If you're a business entrepreneur considering the University of Illinois' Research Park as a location for your start-up, you may stumble upon the micro-urban video above. If you do, and the video does what it's supposed to, you'll want to relocate to the Champaign-Urbana area. Because it is smart and innovative, fast-paced, young, brimming with movers and shakers, and your average commute time will be 14 minutes.
In fact, the Research Park and the micro-urban video are both efforts to link the university with the growing industrial research market that profits from its proximity to university resources and in turn offers job opportunities and tax revenues to the larger C-U community.
Universities have always been incubators for business development to some degree, and business parks that have sprung up in campus towns have been especially popular with start-ups. What is new in the past decade is the development of research parks by the universities themselves, on university land, with clear links to the academic institution and even its business school.
UI's Champaign-Urbana Research Park is about half university buildings and half buildings leased to small and large businesses. Academic and industry facilities are intermixed, and at the nexus of the two is the EnterpriseWorks Technology Business Incubator, a 43,000 square foot facility that offers lab and office space and technical support for start-up companies.
(Photo courtesy of the University of Illinois Research Park)
Start-ups are even better when they become successful large companies that stay in the town where they were born and nurtured. That's where the "micro urban" campaign comes in. Companies need a certain infrastructure to function and allow them to recruit the best minds. C-U offers extensive facilities for lease not just near but on campus, with access to campus resources, a major hotel, and restaurants. And it offers enough of an urban vibe (culture, activity, nightlife, diversity) to attract and retain large companies and their more international workforce.
There is a lot of talk these days about collaboration between the public and private sector in terms of bringing research to fruition and to market. Champaign-Urbana would seem to be taking the concept of integration to new heights, including marketing the town, and its cultural capital, for the benefit of all parties.
For companies that supply life science laboratory equipment, the conjunction of university and industry in one locale means more customers in one place and pooled resources for large purchases. Since UICU is already one of the largest research institutions in the United States, the addition of industry creates a huge customer base for vendors.
To meet academic and industrial researchers, and science industry representatives from the greater Champaign-Urbana area, plan on attending or exhibiting at Biotechnology Calendar's 10th Annual Urbana-Champaign BioResearch Faire™ Event on May 11, 2011 at the University of Illinois U-C Campus.