Tapping the Triangle’s innovation advantage

The North Carolina Research Triangle is uniquely positioned to be a hub of global technology innovation — in large part because of access to and collaboration with three world-class research universities.

The University of North Carolina, North Carolina State University and Duke University contribute an estimated $27 billion to the state’s economy. The Research Triangle Park and its network of more than 300 companies — with approximately $4 billion in annual research expenditures — sit in the space between the academic giants. The list of successful startups fostered or headquartered in the Triangle runs from Epic Games to Pendo to Red Hat to Teamworks.

“You can't tell the story of innovation in North America without speaking about the Triangle,” said Dedric Carter, Vice Chancellor for Commercialization and Translational Advancement for the UNC Health System. “The idea of regions coming together and trying to figure out how do you do something greater than the sum of its parts has a lot of its origins in the work of the Triangle.”

Carter was part of a panel at the third annual Bank of America Triangle Innovation Summit. Representatives from the three universities discussed the value of the Triangle, the historic cooperation between its academics and businesses — and also their fears about the future. The current administration has proposed cuts to the National Institutes of Health and other federal grant programs that could cost the Research Triangle billions of dollars in funding, jeopardizing many research projects and initiatives.

“We're certainly in, if not unprecedented, definitely not great territory in terms of what's starting to happen with NIH funding, and a lot of gutting of the funding that's coming into the university system,” said Archie O’Connor, panel moderator and co-founder of Raleigh-Durham Startup Week. Estimates range from $3 billion to $6 billion in impact on the three universities and their projects.

“From a perspective of funding basic research, I think we should all acknowledge that it's going to be really hard times inside universities for a while,” said Jeff Welch, Director of New Ventures at Duke University. “While we likely all agree that underfunding basic research is not a good idea for the country’s future, on the bright side, universities have been able to operate for the last 25 or 30 years in a somewhat risk intolerant, insular way, and the current environment may open up more opportunity for universities to engage with industry and early-stage venture capital providers.”

The funding cutoffs could lead to the universities reaching out more to private sources of funding or looking for different types of collaboration with private enterprise and businesspeople. “In the near term, shifts in federal funding mean we can’t rely on the same operating models we’ve always used. That gives universities a real opportunity to shape new approaches that better support how research is actually done. I think there are a lot of opportunities for industry and the commercialization sectors to engage,” said Krista Walton, Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation at NC State and a faculty entrepreneur who has spun off three companies from her research over the years.

Walton suggested, for instance, an entrepreneur “serving as a CEO-in-residence with a university’s office of commercialization or mentoring a faculty member or postdoc who’s just stepping out of the lab and trying to turn their work into something scalable.” Carter of UNC echoed her thoughts. It’s a good time, he said, “to definitely engage your time, talent and treasures in helping early, early ventures.” Walton did also make a plea for financially supporting university research. “Without it, innovation will dry up,” she said. “If we stop doing basic research right now, we'll have some runway, but the innovation pipeline will dry up. As a nation, we have to continue supporting it.”

The Triangle universities have had real impact in the tech space and broader business world. NC State ranks among the top universities in terms of tech transfer efficiency. Its Office of Research Commercialization has launched more than 190 startups and licensed more than 600 products.

For their part, the universities are working to attract more venture capital to the state. All three universities sponsor “venture days” to bring in VCs from out of state to see what their translational research might offer. The universities also are working on ways to collaborate more often. Duke has set up workshops in life sciences and in technology to bring all three universities together.

The university representatives said lowering the barriers and making IP agreements less rigid would make it easier for their students and faculty to work together and to work with startups and large corporations. “The barriers are getting folks to work together and helping figure out how not to let the IP get in the way but let the IP be the thing that you're trying to advance,” Carter said.

Given the Triangle’s academic and business talents, plus the region’s history of entrepreneurial success, Carter ended on a hopeful note. “Innovation is when one finds economic, strategic or societal value and fundamental knowledge, and you take that knowledge to impact the human condition, and that is what we are,” he said. “We have the opportunity here to do that in spades, to take our complementary and our supportive structures and knowledge base and assets to do something to have an outsized return in the region — but beyond that, on the rest of the world.”

Agreed Welch: “If you have not invested in a technology-based startup located here, or you have not invested in a venture capital fund located here, I think you should ask yourself — why not?”