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May 24, 2010
North Carolina's research edge
Technology is a major part of today's economy, but to both maintain and expand that technology, cutting-edge research -- including university research -- needs to be done. In looking at centers of academic research around the country, how does North Carolina stack up?
Dr. Mike Walden, North Carolina Cooperative Extension economist in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at N.C. State University, responds:
"As you might expect, a lot of this research at universities is taking place at major population centers in the country. So, for example, if you look at the top five regions in the country for academic research and development they are in New York City, Boston, Washington, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
"But guess who is number six? The Raleigh-Durham metro area. In fact, we had $1.5 billion of academic research spending in 2006 that puts us just behind Boston. And we are the only smaller metropolitan area in the top ten.
"So I think this tells us how important ... research and development in our universities is to the economic development of both the Triangle and of North Carolina."
Posted by deeshore at May 24, 2010 10:02 AM