Best Practices in State and Regional Innovation Initiatives: Competing in the 21st Century (2013)

ANNEX B

North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park

From a local economic development perspective, North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park (RTP) stands as something of a counterpoise to Silicon Valley as well as to conventional wisdom about how to foster innovation. Unlike Silicon Valley, RTP did not spontaneously evolve out of the interaction between local universities and the surrounding region, nor has its success at any point been primarily associated with start-up firms, although many start-ups are attributable to RTP. While local universities were essential to RTP’s ultimate success, they were to some extent recruited for the effort by local civic boosters as part of a broader out-of-state recruitment strategy of the sort that is sometimes disparaged by analysts of technology-driven economic development. Research Triangle Park “is the only one of the three celebrated high-tech clusters [the others being Silicon Valley and Route 128] that was conceived of before it existed, and the only one where government and academia were equal partners with private industry during the initial development phase.”¹ “[I]n RTP, we see a centrally planned rather than organic process driven by established firms rather than start-ups.”²

RTP thus is arguably of considerable relevance to states and regions that have not been blessed with the dense networks of universities and innovative local industries that characterized the Boston area and the San Francisco Peninsula in the first half of the Twentieth Century. During that same period, North Carolina was an economic backwater facing a future of long-run economic decline and low per capita income, a prospect that many states and regions still regard with concern today. When RTP was formed in the 1950s, per-capita income in Raleigh, Cary, and Durham, where RTP is located, was far below the state and national averages. Today, half a century later, the RTP region’s per capita income greatly exceeds the North Carolina average and is

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¹Jay Schalin, “An Accident of Planned Growth,” Pope Center, January 2, 2011.

²Damien M. Ibrahim, “Building the Next Silicon Valley: The role of Angel Investors in Economic Development,” University of Wisconsin Law School, September 2008.

significantly above the U.S. national average. “In the 1960s, it was one of the poorest regions in the southeastern United States and today is among the wealthiest in the southeast.”³

THE FOUNDERS

Although a number of individuals in the North Carolina of the 1940s envisioned that the state’s universities could play a role in economic development, the idea of Research Triangle Park is generally conceded to have been conceived by Romeo H. Guest, a North Carolina entrepreneur who was trained as an architectural engineer at MIT, where he saw how research could contribute directly to a local economy. Guest moved to Greensboro in 1936 to open a branch of his family’s construction business and began to develop contacts with out-of-state companies seeking locations for factories in the South. Between 1939 and 1942, he sought to persuade Merck & Company to locate in Aberdeen, NC but the firm chose a site near the University of Virginia’s teaching hospital. As a result of this experience, Guest began to advocate establishment of a planned research center in North Carolina drawing on the resources of Duke, North Carolina State University, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UCNC), and the recruitment of companies with a research orientation.⁴ He traveled outside the state with former state treasurer Brandon Hodges and other industrial recruiters to talk about the state with businesses. On October 10, 1953, Guest later recalled, “I wrote down Research Triangle Park [in my diary]”, the first use of that term.⁵

Hodges had been elected state treasurer of North Carolina in 1948 and sought to bring new industries to the state, particularly those with a technological orientation, to help it diversify its economic base beyond its principal traditional industries, tobacco, textiles, and furniture, all of which employed low-wage workers. In 1952, North Carolina ranked third from the bottom among states with respect to per capita income. Hodges took Guest’s Research Triangle idea to Governor Luther Hodges (no relation) but the Governor was initially unreceptive and apparently not aware of the role technology could play in economic development. Hodges secured the help of William Newell, director of the North Carolina Textile Research Center, a

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³Rick L. Weddle, “Research Triangle Park: Past Success and the Global Challenge,” in National Research Council, Understanding Research, Science and Technology Parks: Global Best Practices—Summary of a Symposium, C. Wessner, ed., Washington DC: The National Academies Press, 2009, pp. 104.

⁴The three research universities had a strong reputation in the mid-Twentieth Century. However, given the lack of employment opportunities for graduates, “North Carolina was experiencing serious ‘brain drain’, with many of its college graduates moving to other states in search for employment. J.W. Hardin, “North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park,” Pathways to High-Tech Valleys and Research Triangles: Innovative Entrepreneurship, Knowledge Transfer, and Cluster Formation in Europe and the United States, Dordrecht: Springer, 2008.

⁵“Romeo Guest Was Force Behind Research Triangle Park,” Wilmington Star News April 31, 1983.

proponent of research, who drafted a report, “A Proposal for the Development of an Industrial Research Center in North Carolina”. The next meeting with the Governor went better and the Research Triangle project became known as the “Governor’s Research Triangle”.⁶ In 1956, Governor Hodges established the Research Triangle Committee Inc. with the stated mission of encouraging and promoting “the establishment of industrial research laboratories and other facilities in North Carolina primarily in, but not limited to, that geographical area or triangle formed by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina State college of Agriculture and Engineering of the University of North Carolina at Raleigh, and Duke University at Durham.”⁷

Romeo Guest initiated meetings with the three research universities in 1955, finding them to be “wary” with respect to the Research Triangle concept. William Carmichael, representing the UNC system, supposedly commented to Guest in 1956—

Let me see, if I really understand what we are talking about here, you want the professors here and all of us to be the prostitutes and you’re going to be the pimp.⁸

While some representatives of the university community were active in the Research Triangle initiative, the Research Triangle Committee’s work reflected an intention that the universities would maintain a certain distance from industry.⁹ The Committee adopted the following guideline:

It is not anticipated that the three universities in the Triangle shall engage directly in the conduct of industrial research, except under carefully designed and administered policies. Rather, the principal functions of the Universities are to stimulate industrial research by the research atmosphere their existence creates, and to supplement industrial-research talents and facilities by providing a wellspring of

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⁶Dennis P. Leyden, and Albert N. Link, “Collective Entrepreneurship: The Strategic Management of Research Triangle Park,” La Jolla: Strategic Management of Places Conference, December 11, 2011. p. 3.

⁷The Research Triangle Committee was a non-profit, non-stock benevolent, education and charitable corporation to promote industrial research laboratories in North Carolina, particularly in the triangle.

⁸Albert N. Link, A Generosity of Spirit: The Early History of the Research, Research Triangle Park: The Research Triangle Foundation of North Carolina, 1995, pp. 28-29.

⁹Howard Odum, Chairman of the Sociology Department of UNC-Chapel Hill, conceived of a research institute to coordinate and integrate the work of the three research universities, suggesting a site near the regional airport at Raleigh. George Simpson, Odum’s student, who was appointed in 1956 to the post of director of the Research Triangle Committee, was a professor of sociology at the UNC-Chapel Hill. William Friday, acting president and then president of the University of North Carolina system, played a key role in the formation of the Research Triangle Committee. William Little, a professor of chemistry at UNC-Chapel Hill solicited businesses to locate in the Park and is credited with securing the first industrial tenant, Chemstrand Corp., in 1961. Doug Campbell, “High Tech Down South” Region Focus, Summer 2005, p. 39. Fred M. Park, “Research Triangle Park: Turning Poor Dirt into Pay Dirt,” MetroNC December 1999.

knowledge and talents for the stimulation and guidance of research by industrial firms.¹⁰

The Research Triangle Committee raised some funds from private investors that were used to take out options on land under the name of a for-profit company, Pinelands.¹¹ When the for-profit scheme appeared to stall, boosters of the Triangle project turned to Archie Davis, Chairman of Wachovia Bank and Trust Company, to promote the sale of Pinelands stock. Davis immediately faulted the for-profit business model and sought to demonstrate that more capital could be raised more quickly through appeals to wealthy and established North Carolinians to make contributions on a philanthropic basis based on their interest in serving the state of North Carolina. Davis toured the state at his own expense advocating the research park for the good of the state, and raised $1,425,000 within several months from over 800 anonymous individuals. The funds were used to acquire the land that had been purchased by Pinelands and to transfer control of Pinelands to a non-profit Research Triangle Foundation.¹² In addition, the funds supported the establishment of a separate Research Triangle Institute to perform contract research for government and industry and construct a building for the Institute in the park.¹³ George Simpson, a faculty member at UNC-Chapel Hill, became director of the Institute and addressed the UNC faculty in 1957, articulating his vision of the Research Triangle:

Our problem in North Carolina and in the South is not essentially technical; we have available to us the same scientific information as is available elsewhere; we have the same books and substantially the same facilities for training young people in science. Our problem is essentially cultural—it is the failure of our people to grasp the uses of science in industrial development, the failure to put to work what is available, the failure to begin those chain reactions of research and invention and developing which are the hall mark of mid-twentieth century life. These three institutions, located so closely together are really a sort of improbable peak standing above the relative Sahara of scientific application to industrial development…I suggest therefore, that great advantage will accrue to the University if the Triangle area develops as we hope and becomes known as the research center of the

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¹⁰Albert N. Link, A Generosity of Spirit: The Early History of the Research, op. cit., pp. 28-29.

¹¹An early major investor was Karl Robbins who had experience in the states’ textile industry but had relocated to New York. Robbins invested $2,705,000 that was used to option parcels of land. He lost interest in further investments by North Carolina residents. Layden and Link, “Collective Entrepreneurship,” op. cit., p. 5.

¹²Davis consulted with Thad Eure, who had served as North Carolina’s secretary of state for nearly half a century, and managed to win tax-exempt status from the IRS despite the fact that the new entity involved a partial rollover from private stock. “They virtually set a legal precedent—out of court.” Park, “Poor Dirt into Pay Dirt”, Op. cit. p. 4.

¹³Albert N. Link, A Generosity of Spirit: The Early History of the Research, op. cit., p. 73.

South and as one of the major research and scholarly concentrations in the nation.¹⁴

Research Triangle Park opened its doors in 1959. Simpson developed an inventory of the research strengths and faculty activities at the three universities, determining that significant competencies of potential interest to industry existed in pharmaceuticals, electronics, and chemistry. “With hundreds of prospects, Simpson targeted key faculty members who could become traveling salesmen in their respective fields, and the triangle recruitment show hit the road in all directions”.¹⁵ Simpson assembled “one of the most unusual teams of traveling salesmen ever seen in business offices,” comprised of faculty members who each developed industry-specific brochures based on their academic specialties.¹⁶ Professor William Little of the Chemistry Department at UNC-Chapel Hill visited roughly 200 companies during the academic year of 1958-59, reporting significant interest by companies who “needed a supply of graduates to staff future research projects.”¹⁷ The first company to purchase land in the park, Chemstrand Corporation, a joint subsidiary of Monsanto and American Viscose, was one of Little’s targets, acquiring land in 1959, and went on to originate Astroturf at its R&D facilities in the Park. Other first wave organizations to enter the park included textile firms such as Hercules Beunit and the American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists. Despite the recruitment of some companies, Research Triangle Park remained “largely empty” until 1965, despite extensive recruitment efforts throughout the U.S. and Europe, and by 1964 was reportedly on the brink of bankruptcy.¹⁸

The Park’s fortunes were substantially improved as a result of Terry Sanford’s election as governor in 1960. Sanford supported the presidential candidacy of John F. Kennedy despite the fact that Kennedy’s Catholicism entailed local political risk for Sanford. Sanford campaigned for Kennedy, raised money for his campaign and subsequently helped former Governor Hodges become Kennedy’s Commerce Secretary. After his election, Kennedy supported Sanford’s efforts to expand the Research Triangle Park through major land acquisitions.¹⁹ Sanford secured a commitment from the President to build an “Environmental Health Sciences Center in Research Triangle Park”—Sanford later recalled “I really leaned on him to get that environmental health center put

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¹⁴Albert N. Link, A Generosity of Spirit: The Early History of the Research, op. cit., p. 49.

¹⁵Park, “Poor Dirt into Pay Dirt,” op. cit., p. 3.

¹⁶Albert N. Link, A Generosity of Spirit: The Early History of the Research, op. cit., p. 42.

¹⁷Ibid. p. 3. Little was enthusiastic about the project because of his unhappiness with the fact that many of North Carolina’s graduates in science and engineering “inevitably left for jobs in large, often Northern cities”. In 2005, at age 75, he remembered that “I couldn’t do anything with my work in Chemistry in North Carolina. Campbell, “High Tech Down South,” p. 39, 2005.

¹⁸North Carolina History Project. “Terry Sanford (1977-1998)”. <http://www.northcarolinahistory.org/encyclopedia/547/entry>.

¹⁹Ibid. Southern Oral History Program, “Oral History Interview with George Esser”, Interview L-0035, June-August 1990.

here, and so I went several times to see him about that and leaned on him hard. That’s what I turned my green stamps in for.”²⁰ Reflecting these efforts in 1965, the federal government decided to locate its new environmental initiative in Research Triangle Park.²¹ The Park became the site of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, at the time the only arm of the National Institutes of Health located outside of Bethesda, Md. This deal was reportedly facilitated by an offer of free land for the project from the Research Triangle Foundation.

The same year, IBM agreed to establish a presence in the park; the Foundation’s Vice President, Akers Moore, who managed much of the negotiation, declined to provide details in an interview 15 years later, except to observe that, “it was the most secretive, cloak-and-dagger deal you can possibly imagine”. According to one source, the state clinched the deal with a commitment to link the Park with Raleigh and Cary with a 4-lane highway, which has become today’s Interstate 40.²² According to another source, the courtship of IBM was a 7-year effort in which a key role was played by UNC Professor Fred Brooks, a former IBM researcher who developed the System/360 computers and operating system software. Four decades later, IBM remains RTP’s largest employer, with 11,000 workers.²³ In the decades that followed, IBM brought about 40 IBM organizations to RTP, including a significant part of its product development and headquarters functions. By 2002, its RTP facility was one of the company’s largest in the world.²⁴

By the early 2000s Research Triangle Park was the base for over 150 industrial and government facilities employing over 45,000 people, and RTP was regarded as the “engine for economic growth in the region.”²⁵ A 2000 study documented over 1,000 technology-based start-ups in the Triangle counties since 1970, over 150 of which were traceable to RTP universities. Employment in those start-ups exceeded employment levels in the RTP itself.²⁶ Governor James B. Hunt, speaking at a 40^th anniversary commemoration of RTP, recalled

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²⁰The News and Observer, “Sanford Answered History’s Knock, Changed Course of RTP,” April 27, 1998.

²¹George Eggers, a North Carolina civil rights activist who later headed the North Carolina Fund, recalled in a 1990 oral history interview that “you know, I think [Sanford’s] supporting John Kennedy was an act of courage…and it later turned out to have very practical results in my judgment. I think the Research Triangle Park succeeds today because Terry Sanford supported John Kennedy. In other words, I think the Federal government brought the facilities to Research Park that would not necessarily have come if Terry's support of John Kennedy and later Luther Hodges going to Washington, because Terry supported Kennedy started in motion a string of events that ended up with that HEW agency coming to the Research Triangle Park and making it financially feasible. Southern Oral History Program, “Oral History Interview with George Esser,” Interview L-0035, June-August, 1990.

²²Park, “Poor Dirt into Pay Dirt,” op. cit., p. 5.

²³Doug Campbell, “High Tech Down South,” Region Focus Summer 2005, p. 39.

²⁴Michael E. Porter, Research Triangle, Washington, DC: Council on Competitiveness, p. 44.

²⁵Ibid. p. 40.

²⁶Albert N. Link, From Seed to Harvest: The Growth of Research Triangle Park, Research Triangle Park: Research Triangle Foundation, 2002, p. 37.

that before the Park, North Carolina had been a very poor state, with one of the lowest per capita income levels in the U.S.:

Since this Research Triangle Park was created, primarily because of it, we have gone up…among the states in per capita income…The success of this Park, and the way we have worked on it together, has emboldened us in North Carolina. We now believe we can do big things.²⁷

THE BOARD OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

In 1961, Governor Sanford gathered 39 scientists from the three Universities of the Triangle to provide advice on how to help the state meet the challenge posed by scientific change, solve the problems of local industry, and remake the state into a center of science and innovation.²⁸ This group consulted with scientists invited from other states, and ultimately concluded that the key need was more financial support for scientific research. In 1963, the state General Assembly created the Board of Science and Technology to encourage scientific, engineering, and industrial research applications within the state. The Board initially operated as a grant dispensing entity modeled on the National Science Foundation, operating the first competitive state research grants programs in the U.S. The Board’s grants programs were directed at “the best [local] university ideas” and represented a “pipeline for the commercialization of academic discoveries.” Between 1963 and 1969, the Board reviewed 339 proposals and funded 110, leading to 116 follow-on grants from other sources.²⁹

Over the following decades, through a number of governmental reorganizations, the Board proposed and acted as an advocate for a significant number of what have become the “state’s core institutional infrastructure organizations,” including the Microelectronics Center of North Carolina (MCNC), the North Carolina Biotechnology Center, and the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics. In 2000, the Board instituted the “innovation index” to benchmark North Carolina’s innovation-related performance relative to other states. In 2006, it promulgated the Roadmap for Nanotechnology in North Carolina’s 21st Century Economy to foster nanotech-based economic development in the state.³⁰ In 2006, it successfully proposed the provision of matching state grants to small businesses in North Carolina that

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²⁷Ibid. pp. 33-34.

²⁸This group became the Governor’s Science Advisory Committee, one of the first organizations of its kind in the country.

²⁹John Hardin and Maryann Feldman, “North Carolina’s Board of Science and Technology: A Model for Guiding Technology-Based Economic Development in the South”, in D. P. Gillerman, and P. A. Coclanis, eds., Way Forward: Building a Globally Competitive South, Chapel Hill: Global Research Institute, 2011, pp. 120-121.

³⁰“Utah Firm Picks Triad—210 Jobs Expected at Whitsett Plant,” Winston-Salem Journal, August 10, 2006.

succeed in wining federal Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) grants.³¹

DEEPENING UNIVERSITY-INDUSTRY COLLABORATION

In 1974, Archie Davis, serving as President of the Research Triangle Foundation, began advocating a physical presence by the three research universities within the Park. In 1975, the Triangle Universities Center for Advanced Studies, Inc. (TUCASI), a non-profit corporation, was founded on a 120-acre tract within the Park.³² This “park within an park,” virtually unique in science parks in the U.S. and abroad, subsequently came to house a number of other organizations including the Microelectronics Center for North Carolina, the North Carolina Biotechnology Center, and the National Institute of Statistical Sciences.³³

NORTH CAROLINA—
RECRUITING A BIOTECHNOLOGY INDUSTRY

North Carolina Research Triangle Park (RTP) is the foremost U.S. example of a successful innovation cluster established through a state recruitment effort seeking to attract established high-tech companies from other states.³⁴ North Carolina’s more recent success in establishing biotechnology clusters demonstrates the continuing viability of out-of-state recruitment as a development strategy in innovation-based, technology-intensive industries. By some key metrics, the state ranks third nationwide (after only Massachusetts and California) in the life sciences and ranks number one in terms of concentration of clinical trial research support firms. Life sciences firms with significant operations in the state include Pfizer, Novartis, Biogen-Idec, NovoNordisk, and Merck. Significantly, in contrast to other prominent life science states, few of North Carolina’s biopharma manufacturers have local origins—nearly 85 percent were “nonlocal,” and many “of them were actively recruited from Europe, Japan and other U.S. locations.”³⁵

In 1984, North Carolina’s General Assembly established the North Carolina Biotechnology Center (NCBT), the world’s first government-sponsored economic development organization in the fledgling field of biotechnology. The

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³¹“N.C. Behind Grant Plan—State May Match Funds Given to Firms by Feds,” Winston-Salem Journal October 6, 2005. John Hardin and Maryann Feldman, “North Carolina’s Board of Science and Technology: A Model for Guiding Technology-Based Economic Development in the South,” op. cit., pp. 120-121

³²Leyden and Link, “Collective Entrepreneurship,” op. cit. p. 7.

³³Albert N. Link and John T. Scott, “The Growth of Research Triangle Park” at the National Academy of Sciences STEP Collaborative Conference on “Policies to Promote Entrepreneurship in a Knowledge-Based Economy: Best Practice from the U.S. and the U.K. September 18-19, 2010, p. 5.

³⁴The development of the Research Triangle Park is summarized in the Annex to this report.

³⁵Ibid. p. 11.

establishment of the NCBT was the beginning of a phenomenally successful effort by the state to achieve a leading position in this field. By 2012, North Carolina led all other states in job growth rates in the biosciences, recording a 23.5 percent increase in jobs since 2001. Total job gains in biotechnology during the period—12,000—were exceeded only by three much larger states, California, Texas, and Florida.³⁶

As was the case with respect to RTP, North Carolina has approached industrial recruiting in the life sciences over a long time horizon. The North Carolina Biotechnology Center spearheads the comprehensive study of hundreds of prospective biotech company recruits, gathering data and information gleaned informally at conferences and industry events in order to gain advanced knowledge of plans by companies to establish new facilities. The North Carolina Department of Commerce works with “local practitioners” in communities to educate them with respect to the nuances of the biopharma industry” and the available local resources that can be deployed in outreach efforts to biopharma firms. BioNetwork, a consortium of community colleges that provide biopharma training, is engaged in the early phases of recruitment deals and can highlight the state’s advantages in the workforce area as well as identify and seek to address skills gaps. The three state development organizations work together as a team, often seeking to shift emphasis away from incentives sought by companies to the states intrinsic locational advantage.³⁷

Dr. Charles Hamner, who has been characterized as the “biofather” of North Carolina’s biotech industry, ran the North Carolina Biotechnology Center for a 14-year period beginning in 1987.³⁸ During his tenure the NCBC directed $50 million to the state’s universities, created a $26 million venture capital fund investing in local biotech startups (which helped attract an additional $400 million of private venture funds), recruited ten biotech companies to the state, and raised funds to establish the NCBC’s headquarters in Research Triangle Park, which became a “networking hub for area biotech executives.”³⁹ In an interview at the time of his retirement, he observed that “thirty-five other states have biotechnology initiatives, but no other state has nearly as holistic an approach as we do.”⁴⁰

NCBC is providing support for intellectual exchange networks that foster research and information sharing in order to promote industry-university

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³⁶Battelle Technology Partnership Practice,2012 Evidence and Opportunity: Impacts of the Biosciences in North Carolina, January 2013, pg. ES-2.

³⁷Ibid. p. 112-113. North Carolina has used traditional incentives as well in the competition for biopharma jobs. In 2004, the state legislative approved a package of $36 million in incentives to persuade Merck & Co. to locate a $300 million vaccine plant in Durham, N.C. Site Selection, January 2004.

³⁸WARLtechwire, “Just Call Charles Hamner the ‘Biofather’ of Biotech in NC,” November 18, 2011.

³⁹“Head of NC Biotechnology Center Steps Down: Hamner Helped Shape Industry,” The News and Observer, September 27, 2001.

⁴⁰“Bold Vision of Biotech’s Future: A Chat with Charles Hamner,” The News and Observer, May 14, 2001.

collaborations. Intellectual Exchange Groups (IEGs) can be launched by interested groups and individuals in the life sciences fields with participants drawn from universities, businesses and other constituencies. NCBC funds cover the cost of meeting expenses. These groups meet four times a year. Thematic IEGs have been formed in North Carolina in bioprocessing, plant molecular biology, smaller eukaryotes, chromatography, next generation sequencing, immunology, and other areas.⁴¹

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⁴¹NCBC, “Intellectual Exchange Groups,” <http://www.ncbiotech.org/business-commercialization/connect-with-colleagues/intellectual-exchange-groups>.