They are gaining so much momentum that a statewide organization — the first in the country — was formed in March to promote their efforts, foster collaborations between them and to lobby for additional funding from the state.
The umbrella organization, called Research Parks Maryland, will be based at M Square, a massive research park located at the University of Maryland, College Park.
M Square has thus far seen success in creating a handful of research clusters.
For instance, the National Foreign Language Center, a think tank focused on studying languages, moved to the park to be part of a language and homeland defense cluster that includes the Center for Advanced Study of Languages, a university partnership with the National Security Agency.
Invoke, which moved into the second of what is expected to be a five-building park at bwtech@ UMBC, is also looking to feed off its proximity to a pool of talent. The company hopes to create an internship program that could draw several college students a year.
The 60,000-square-foot building, now fully leased, houses about a dozen companies — a mix of research firms, technology companies and a few companies that outgrew the university’s on-campus incubator program.
Software startup BD Metrics, the first incubator company to land at the park, employs 12 student interns and has hired four former students, said Ellen Hemmerly, executive director of the UMBC Research Park Corp., which oversees the park.
Networking and information sharing also benefit companies that locate at university-based parks.
“You get dropped into a community of companies and that has been a real and tangible benefit,” said Stout.
That community is about to grow bigger.
In March, the university struck a deal with Columbia-based Corporate Office Properties to build the park’s third building. The new one-story, 23,500-square-foot building will be the home of a water science center run by the U.S. Geological Survey when it moves from its current location in White Marsh.
 |
| M Square is a massive 128-acre research and technology campus research park located at the University of Maryland, College Park. |
Although bwtech@UMBC was the state's first university-based research park, M Square is the largest.
The sprawling 128-acre research and technology campus will host more than 2 million square feet of public and private research, lab and incubator space. It is expected to generate about 6,500 jobs and include residential units.
University officials believe M Square will attract large research organizations and government agencies looking to draw from a diverse university research base that includes such areas as engineering, computer science and mathematics.
The park also boasts notable federal organizations such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. University planners hope that federal presence will help attract private companies, said Brian Darmody, university assistant vice president for research and economic development.
Darmody sees the park as an “intermediary,” bringing federal and academic researchers together with private firms around particular scientific areas.
Park advocates are looking for earth and space sciences, food safety and security companies to clusters in the park, he said.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chose a 7.5-acre site in the park to build its Center for Weather and Climate Prediction, a facility that will consolidate parts of at least three NOAA divisions.
The 226,000-square-foot building, which broke ground in March, will house about 800 employees. The agency is expected to move into the building in 2008.
Further north, the University of Maryland, Baltimore has completed the first of 10 buildings it will dedicate to life sciences, including biotechnology research, as part of a 10-acre research park that could generate 2,500 jobs in West Baltimore over the next 15 years.
On the east side of the city, East Baltimore Development Inc. is planning a bioscience research park as the centerpiece of an 80-acre revitalization project north of Johns Hopkins Hospital.
Park backers say it will do more than simply create a research center in a long neglected area of East Baltimore. For some, biotechnology parks are the center of a larger economic development plan that can revitalize urban centers.
“One of the big economic engines in metropolitan areas these days are academic institutions,” said Donald Fry, president of the Greater Baltimore Committee, a business advocacy group.
The organization spearheaded a bill that would have provided $4 million in state income tax credits to companies locating in university research parks but the bill died in the House Ways and Means Committee. <
Robyn Fieser is a freelance writer in Havre de Grace, Md. 
