The Research Triangle: A Partnership

The subject of university research parks is just one aspect of a much larger topic that's getting a lot of attention in higher education today. Dr. William Little, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Distinguished Professor of Chemistry, addressing an assembly of professionals in the field of chemistry on the partnership between academia, state government, and the corporate citizenry in the research triangle. Universities and colleges all over the country are increasingly considering real estate development as a part of their endowment programs. These ventures are including things like development of land holdings for apartment, housing, office buildings, shopping centers, conference centers, and research parks. And while usually the principal motivation is to generate endowment income and long-term appreciation of property, there's some spin-off values that are important and a lot of these

activities. Values such as improving the surroundings around the institution, stimulating the local economy, creating future physical facilities for academic programs after long term leases, attracting research or other corporate neighbors that might interact intellectually with the institutional programs. Both because of these kinds of currents and also because of its remarkable success, the research triangle has attracted a great deal of national attention in recent years. During the past year alone, there have been more than 90 delegations from all over the country visiting the research triangle, representing all states in the Union and every state in the Union except two. The case history is rather interesting, and our local historians can trace the origin of the idea to several sources. But they all agree on one point, namely that Luke Governor Luther Hodges rang the bell

in 1955. When he assembled a group of university leaders and leaders of the business and manufacturing in the state, appointed them as the governor's research triangle committee to consider just how this historical accident of three research universities, Duke, UNC, and NC state located in close proximity, might more effectively be utilized to benefit the economic development of the state. Now consider the condition of North Carolina at that time. It was near the bottom among all 48 states in per capita income. It wasn't the wealthy state. The principal industries were textiles, tobacco, furniture, low wage industries, subject to rather wild economic fluctuations, and the state had more farms than any state in the Union, but most of them were economic and marginal. Yet in this region, the state had a certain unique set of assets.

At the center of the state, where these three universities, in a configuration of an obtuse triangle, with the longest leg between 28 miles, at the centroid of the triangle, was the Raleigh Durham airport. On a ridge among thousands of acres of worn out farmland, these were rolling hills then covered with an extensive growth of scrubbines. The location was on the axis that runs from Atlanta through Washington, New York, and to Boston, but it was in a pastoral setting. At this time, the problems of the cities were beginning to emerge. Back in the 50s, PhD scientists were rather scarce commodity in those pre and then the post-sputnik years, and all this was prior to the explosive expansion of PhD programs that occurred nationally in the years ahead in the 60s. Living conditions were becoming an important consideration in this highly competitive arena of industrial recruitment, and the Sun Belt phenomenon was still a farther ahead.

The committees surveyed the research talent and the graduate programs at the three universities and considered the uniqueness of such an assembly outside of a metropolitan area. They recognized the importance of good living conditions and assimilating cultural and intellectual environment in that process. With their findings, this committee incorporated itself in 1956 as a nonprofit corporation, and with private funds for operating costs appointed Sociology Professor George L. Simpson Jr. from the Chapel Hill Department of Sociology as Director to develop and execute a plan of action. The original plan was to promote the region as a good location for industrial research laboratories. Secondly, it was hoped that perhaps an entrepreneur could be found who would construct one or more laboratories, speculative ventures for sale or lease, or even to purchase land and develop

a research park, and thirdly, to establish as kind of the crown jewel of this undertaking a nonprofit research institute to be associated with the three universities. Now, the objectives were to enhance and diversify the economy of the state. To strengthen the universities by providing consulting opportunities for faculty scientists and those days it was felt that the university couldn't really afford the full time of a faculty scientist, and possibly securing from the industrial laboratories additional talent that might participate in the university programs. And finally, to reverse an outmigration of the state's youth who had been highly trained in science and engineering. It was recognized that research itself had become an industry and a high pay anyone, and there was the underlying assumption that high technology production plants would follow research and locate to the east and to the west.

There was a deep-le-hell conviction that somewhere in the southeast there would develop a great center of research, such as those that already had sprung up in various metropolitan areas like that along Route 128, around MIT and Harvard in the Boston area, and New Jersey near Princeton, in the Bay Area of California with Berkeley and Stanford, and especially with Stanford's research park that itself was started in 1951. And the intention was to make this area that somewhere. The approach is rather novel. Dr. Simpson assembled a group of faculty salesmen, including a chemist, a medical doctor, and an engineer from the universities, who prepared brochures on institutional resources and chemistry pharmaceuticals and electronics. Later, engineering and forestry were added, and this team set about promoting the region as a good location for industrial laboratories.

They did this through visits to corporate directors of research, through discussions with industrial recruiters when they were on campus, and through talks with industrial colleagues at professional meetings. Within a year, the entrepreneur was found who invested in a private for-profit research park, September 57, a retired New York industrialist with North Carolina Association's purchased options on 4,000 acres of land at the centroid of the triangle, three miles from the airport. And there, now, became a prospect of a park that could be promoted. It was scarcely more than a year, however, when money was to be raised to start the research institute. And the Governor's Committee expanded its horizons and raised $2 million and 60 days, not only to start the research institute, but also to acquire and develop the private research park whose owner had offered it at his cost. The Committee changed its name to the nonprofit research triangle foundation, made a grant

of 200 acres of land and a half million dollars to establish the independent research triangle institute. A professional staff was employed to develop and promote the park. The ultimate errors of the foundation were to be the triangle universities. Within a year, the first major laboratory was announced, Kim Strand Research Center now, the Monsanto Triangle Development Center. But it was not until 1965 with the announcements of the IBM and the Environmental Health Institute decisions that the park was financially secure. Today, the research triangle park embraces 5,800 acres of land and is the largest planned research park in the country. This research park and the Stanford Park are generally considered to be the two superstars

in this kind of endeavor. Where there were only scrubbed line lands 25 years ago, the 5,800 acre park and a splendid stand of lobbyists now includes 40 research organizations, a $1 billion investment in buildings and about an equal amount in equipment, 20,000 employees and an annual payroll of a half billion dollars included or major industrial laboratories, federal laboratories, trade associations, nonprofit research organizations and university consortium. In this complex is the nation's greatest concentration of Ph.D. research scientists. Who unrides through the park and openness and a campus-like atmosphere is experienced? That's because, in the very beginning, planning restrictions of building setbacks of 250 feet from all roads and more importantly, no tenant can build on more than 15% of the land that it holds.

The scope of the scientific activity extends beyond the six greatest concentrations which are computer science and engineering, environmental science, pharmaceuticals and healthcare products, toxicology, microelectronics and agricultural chemicals. But a few illustrations let me attempt to describe the character and scope of the park. Among the five nonprofit organizations is the Highly Successful Research Triangle Institute, now employing around 1,000 persons with annual contractor revenues exceeding $40 million. IBM is the largest industrial laboratory with 6,000 employees working in telecommunications, other groups in electronics and computer-related programs include data-general, northern telecom

and troxler electronics. Burrows welcome, brought both its corporate research laboratories and pharmaceuticals and its corporate headquarters to the park, as did Glaxo, also in pharmaceuticals. Other health-related corporations include Bechton Dickinson and Weck, which is the Division of Squib, both of whom are involved in surgical instruments and hospital appliances. In our EHS is the only National Institutes of Health outside of Bethesda. Along with EPA, which employs about 1,100 people, it's helped attract other laboratories such as Northrop, Airco, Mead Compute Chem, TRW and JE Serene in the environmental field. Other federal laboratories include the Army Research Office, a Forest Services Laboratory

and the Public Health Service Laboratory for Health Statistics. The Union Carbide Agricultural Chemical Research Center is an instance where the company already had a test farm, some 50 miles to the east, and then built their laboratory in the park. The federal electric represents the first group in microelectronics. That was followed by the semiconductor research corporation and then the North Carolina Microelectronics Center, which I'll describe later. The chemical industry's Institute of Toxicology is a consortium of more than 30 leading chemical industries established to conduct research on the toxicology of commodity chemicals. With Burroughs Welcome and the NIEHS, this area contains the nation's largest number of toxicologists at any one location.

The Instruments Society of America and the American Association of Textal Chemists and Colorists are two national trade organizations that are in the park. And then at the center of the park is the service center that is on land leased from the foundation containing a hotel conference center, rental office space, research space, banks, health care, and other professional offices, travel agencies, a delicatessen, a newspaper, office supply companies, and still other supporting services. In 1975, the research triangle foundation took a far reaching step that led to another unique feature of the park. The Triangle University Center for Advanced Studies incorporated the foundation provided 120 acres of land in the center of the park and a small endowment for management costs to provide a campus within the park for joint undertakings of the three universities.

The acronym is Toxicology. Toxic's first venture was to win the national competition as the site for the National Humanities Center, created with the help of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Again, the corporate community of North Carolina, this time in a 30-day period, raised $2.5 million for the building for this center. This think tank for the humanities is modeled after the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, or Palo Alto, and the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton. Each year, a new class of 40 international scholars in the humanities come to the center for a year's work on special projects. This jewel adds to the park the dimensions of the humanities amid the parks otherwise technological orientation and makes the triangle the only research park in the world with a complement in the humanities.

Only on a construction only to Casa campus is the microelectronics center of North Carolina. This was initiated with a $24 million appropriation from the 1982 General Assembly to provide a facility for the design and fabrication of microelectronics chips for the educational and research programs of the Triangle universities, RTI, and two other state institutions that offer engineering programs, NCA and T, State University and UNC Charlotte. UNCNC will link the institutions together with the microwave network to transmit educational programs as well as data. It will be a center for collaborative research among the participating institutions. People often ask how the triangle relates to the original objectives. Some of the measures include, first, the research enterprise alone pumps a half a billion dollars in salaries into the local economy, not the speak of the capital investment and other operating

expenditures, the addition to the tax base and the various multiplier effects that are produced. Some examples of production following research to North Carolina include diverse welcome production plant in Greenville. Urban telecoms plant in Creedmore, Glaxo's plant in Zebulu, data generals plants in Apex and Clayton. And then many cuttings have located plants elsewhere in North Carolina in heart because of the Triangle, though they may not have met the research qualifications for the park. Informaceuticals companies that have recently moved to North Carolina include a genomoto, novo, maling pot, Abbott Laboratories, Bristol Myers, Cutterlabs, Ceba Guigee, and others. And then other kinds of companies include SCM, Glidden Metals, Hylit Packard, Westinghouse, Rockwell, Corning, Imperial Chemical Industries, Ray Kim, Manelog Devices, and still others. More than half of the Fortune 500 companies now have operations in this state.

And North Carolina has moved up from near the bottom and per capita income up into the thirties. And throughout the current recession, unemployment in the state has remained at least a percentage point below the national average in the Triangle region itself. It stayed below 5% throughout the period. North Carolina is now a net importer of PhD scientists. More over graduates at all levels from colleges and universities throughout the state and region have opportunities for a scientific career without leaving the region. Approximately 400 Triangle employees have some formal associations with the Triangle universities and colleges, while a comparable number of faculty members have ongoing consulting relationships in the Triangle. An important, unanticipated effect has been the stimulation of cooperative ventures among the Triangle universities.

Interinstitutional cooperation has enabled these institutions to expand their scope and to acquire and operate facilities that individually they just simply couldn't afford. Examples include the Triangle University's Computation Center, the Triangle University's Nuclear Laboratory, which has to be located on the Duke campus, the Triangle Center for Advanced Studies, the National Humanities Center, the Triangle Mass Spectrometry Center, the Microelectronics Center of North Carolina. The success of the Triangle is not simply based on the presence of three universities and a good climate and a good geography. There are certain critical elements in the infrastructure represented by the partnership and cooperation among the universities, state government, and the corporate citizenry of North Carolina. The corporate citizenry provided the initial funds to acquire and develop the park. They responded again financially to help win the National Humanities Center. But more important, their time, leadership, and expertise has guided the whole Triangle

development, working in close coordination with the universities. The role of state government has been to enhance the entire structure of education at all levels in North Carolina, with ongoing base support and notable innovations. Now there are no state appropriations in the park. That was done totally with private funds, and there had been no tax incentives offered. But if research laboratories were to bring high technology production, then there would have to be provision to re-tool lower skilled workers for the higher skilled industries. The statewide technical institutes program was started in 1955, and today is the third largest in the country. In 1963, the General Assembly created the North Carolina Board of Science and Technology, a state agency like NSF to make research grants to public and private universities, but on a state level, the objective being to strengthen the scientific and engineering base of the state.

The first of its kind in the country, its awarded starter grants to young faculty, equipment grants, grants for research pertinent to the state's economy, and seed money for major interinstitutional initiatives such as the computer center, the Triangle nuclear laboratory, the microelectronics center, and so on. The North Carolina Educational Computing Service, financed by the state through the university system, extends computer services and technical assistance to all educational institutions in the state, including the technical institutes and community colleges. At the secondary school level, the new and unique residential North Carolina High School of Science and Mathematics created for gifted students, graduated its first class of 200 students last June. Their national merit scores were the second highest in the country, and this is the first and only such residential high school in the sciences in the country. I've already mentioned the state's extraordinary commitment to microelectronics. A much smaller effort the North Carolina Biotechnology Center was set up last year to encourage

industrial interaction with the university's genetic engineering programs. Well, these kinds of innovations are a part of the fabric of the research triangle. Yet, along with these commitments, the state has continued its support for quality of life programs such as the state symphony orchestra, the state art museum, the state zoological gardens, each of those the first of its kind, and in 1965, established the state school for the performing arts in Winston-Salem, which is now part of the state university system. As educators, we've seen a tremendous development bring into the southeast here in elsewhere scientific and research career opportunities for our students at all levels. This is but one part of a general movement of research and high technology industry to our whole region. What remains unique about the triangle compared to other set centers in the country is its original commitment to the developing the economy of the region with direct financial benefits to the universities a secondary consideration, originally and still today.

No other research park in the country has involved such a working partnership between state government, the corporate community, and the educational enterprise. Thank you for your attention. Dr. William Little, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Distinguished Professor of Chemistry, addressing an assembly of professionals in the field of chemistry on the partnership between academia, state government, and the corporate citizenry in the research triangle. This is Bob Retterson for WUNC, Chapel Hill.