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Governing BoardChairman, Mitchell Adams Pat Larkin |
Federal research dollars have helped fuel the Massachusetts innovation economy for decades. However, despite reaching record dollar amounts, the relative growth in R&D funding to our academic institutions continues to lag compared to other states. The John Adams Innovation Institute, the economic development arm of the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, is making investments and providing services to support the development of collaborative research in the Commonwealth. These investments represent a sea change for Massachusetts. It is the first time that the Commonwealth has made a sustained effort to invest in its knowledge economy. It gives Massachusetts universities a better chance to succeed on their R&D proposals for federal funding in an increasingly more difficult and competitive environment. “Massachusetts is in the game,” said Patrick Larkin, Director of the John Adams Innovation Institute. “With these strategic investments, the state is maximizing its tremendous intellectual resources, capturing and leveraging federal research dollars in order to grow the innovation economy sector by sector, region by region. The Innovation Institute recently announced a new program of competitive development grants to support both the establishment of new research partnerships and the expansion of existing ones across the Commonwealth. This grant program will provide Massachusetts universities and not-for-profit research centers affiliated with universities financial support up to $150,000 in order to pursue new collaborative research strategies, supported by university and industry partnerships, with compelling market and growth opportunities. This new financial assistance for research centers in the Commonwealth was announced at an R&D Breakfast Briefing Series hosted by the law firm Goodwin Proctor and co-sponsored by Mass Insight and the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative. It featured five panelists involved in research centers and technology transfer: Michael B. Silevitch, Ph.D., Director of the Center for Subsurface Sensing and Imaging Systems at Northeastern University, a National Science Foundation-sponsored Engineering Research Center; Julie Chen, Ph.D., Director of the Center of Excellence in Nanomanufacturing at the University of Massachusetts Lowell; Kenan Sahin, Ph.D., Founder and CEO of TIAX, LLC; George Kachen, Ph.D., Vice President of Triton Systems, Inc.; and J. David Roessner, Associate Director, Science and Technology Program, SRI International. The Innovation Institute has already invested $5 million to create the Center of Excellence in Nanomanufacturing at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, leveraging $12.4 million in a National Science Foundation award for a nanoscale science and engineering center in consortium with Northeastern University and the University of New Hampshire.
Nanotechnology is a technology with great promise, but more good applied research and analysis is needed to translate that A second Center of Excellence, to be located at the Pioneer Valley Life Sciences Institute in Springfield, a biomedical research institute operated by the University of Massachusetts in Amherst in partnership with the Baystate Medical Center, is now moving ahead with its business plan. The focus of the research will be in apoptosis, or programmed cell death, identifying and regulating the signaling pathways of this essential biological process. Defects in the control of apoptosis are thought to account for about 70 percent of human disease.
As part of the May 19th panel on research centers, Dr. Michael Silevitch spoke about the difficulty in winning competitive federal dollars to establish a research center. “You just don’t wake up one day and say, ‘I want to create a research center,’ ” Silevitch said.
Kenan Sahin, Ph.D. spoke at the May 19th panel about the difficulties of collaboration, trying to merge the different cultures of businesses and universities. “A university deliberately fires its ‘employees’ every four years, after training them, and the employees pay for the experience,” Sahin said, who as both a professor and an entrepreneur is well-versed in both worlds. It’s a very different culture from most companies. Yet, he asked, “How many companies have been around longer than 100 years?” The key is learning to understand each other’s language. “Why should a state pony up funds to match federal dollars for a research center?” The answer, according to J. David Roessner, a national expert in the management of innovation, technology transfer and R&D assessment, is the economic value. According to a recent study conducted by Roessner quantifying the direct and indirect economic impact of a research center in Georgia, there was a “10-to-1” payoff: more than $300 million in economic gains on a $32.5 million investment in the research center.
portion of Mass High Tech's article "From performance-enhancing golf balls and tennis racquets to precision tools and instruments used in the fight against cancer, the promise of nanotechnology is a revolutionary transformation of manufacturing that will affect all sectors of industry and society. Despite the emerging availability of these world-of-tomorrow consumer products, nanotechnology is still in its infancy. There remains a heavy emphasis and dependency on research and development at the university level, according to Patrick Larkin, director of the John Adams Innovation Institute, which works to promote the growth of the state's innovation economy. In fact, the heavy reliance on research gives Massachusetts a distinct advantage over other states, according to Larkin, who points to a recent study by New York-based Lux Research, which ranked Massachusetts among all states as "the best poised to capitalize on nanotechnology." Read more. |
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he innovation economy — knowledge and technology-based industry — 
promise into the creation of new products and jobs for Massachusetts. The new Center will address critical needs related to the successful commercialization of nanotechnology, including the creation and discovery of new knowledge, the resolution of key processing problems, and the provision of a highly trained labor force. 
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