NewsRelease

NSF Meeting on Science Parks Set for Nov. 14 at UNCG

GREENSBORO—The role that science parks — such as the state’s Research Triangle Park — play in research, development and innovation in the United States economy will be discussed Thursday, Nov. 14, when a group of policy makers and scholars from around the world meet at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

The program is funded by a $35,604 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and coordinated by economist Dr. Albert N. Link of UNCG, who is regarded as one of the nation’s leading expert on science parks. According to Link, the policy workshop has the potential to be one of the most significant events ever held at UNCG.

The group will make recommendations to NSF on how it should measure the industrial and academic benefits associated with science park interactions. Link and NSF will issue a public report in January 2003. NSF is the nation’s leading funding organization of academic research. The grant will cover costs of the meeting and the forthcoming report.

Link’s second and final volume on the history of Research Triangle Park, which he demonstrates is the most successful science park in the world, was published earlier this year. Titled “From Seed to Harvest: The History of the Growth of the Research Triangle Park,” the book and its author were recognized in May at the
annual board of directors meeting of the Research Triangle Foundation.

The first volume, “A Generosity of Spirit: The Early History of the Research Triangle Park,” was published in 1995.  It formed the historical basis for the 1999 UNC Public Television documentary on the park’s history. Link is editor of the international Journal of Technology Transfer. He has been an advisor on science and technology policy to the governments of Canada, Austria, France, England, Korea and New Zealand. He came to UNCG in 1982 and was previously head of the Department of Economics and director of the Master of Business Administration program in the Joseph M. Bryan School of Business and Economics.

Link has served on advisory panels for the NSF, National Academy of Sciences and National Aeronautics and Space Administration. He is author of numerous scholarly books in the area of technological change and economic growth. He has also received numerous grants from the NSF and the U.S. Department of Commerce.

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