Ed Paisley on Regional Centers of Innovation

What are regional centers of innovation?

Regional centers of innovation around the country sport specific industries—high-tech industries—where universities, and small companies, and large companies, and state and lower governments have gotten together to work and develop a regional innovation center that boasts high growth and good jobs. Silicon Valley is the best example, where the chip industry started and moved into software, and then obviously today social networking and other things. But Boston has its Route 128 corridor for biotech startups; New York has Silicon Alley for entertainment start ups; the Dallas-Austin corridor does chip making, and there are various places elsewhere around the country and the world that do these same kind of things.

How can the federal government cultivate regional centers?

One of the complicating factors about trying to develop regional centers of innovation is they spring forth kind of on their own. Policy is very hard to pull together to develop them. And that's particularly the case with the federal government. The federal government provides lots of funding for science and innovation for basic research, but one thing it doesn't do very well today is focus on the development of a holistic approach to this kind of regional development, including workforce development; education; training; finance, which is very important for start-up companies; and other regulations such as that, taxes as well. These are the kinds of policies, if they're brought together by the federal government and can work with state and local government, that you can develop a working solution for different areas in different ways.

How can regional centers support economic recovery and growth?

One of the most important factors today about trying to support regional centers of innovation is, of course, the dire straits of our economy. We need to be competitive in high-tech industries, and we need to be competitive across the countryÑnot just in Silicon Valley, or Boston, or Texas. So, one of the important, key things that the Obama administration is expected to do, and should do, is to develop a regional center of innovation policy where the federal government can provide the right funding and the right incentives to help other parts of the country develop these same kinds of regions. But the policy has to go two ways—or three or four ways. The state and local governments need to be involved; universities need to be involved; and companies small and large also have to get involved. But there are templates for which this can be developed, and in fact Science Progress will be offering a series of recommendations on just how to get these things done in the near future.