PURPOSE: Construct a new LIFE SCIENCES and BIOTECH BUILDING to strengthen ECU's contributions to regional innovation, as well as job and investment creation. This facility will provide much needed space for training, discovery, industry/university partnerships, and innovation and commercialization. Specifically, it will:
- Address the State's critical STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) workforce needs
- Strengthen recruitment and retention of higher-skilled, higher-paying jobs throughout the region
- Align ECU's research strengths with federal and private funding priorities
- Enable collocation and collaboration of university, industry and government partners within targeted clusters
- Catalyze development of ECU's Millennial Campus
- Contribute to the North Carolina Biotechnology Center's agriculture and life-sciences strategy for eastern N.C.
Taken together, these benefits will help to extend the state's spine of prosperity eastward to all of eastern NC.
REQUEST: East Carolina University requests $15,160,000 in state appropriated funds to begin the planning process for a new life sciences and biotechnology building that is critical to the future success of the region. The total cost of the project will be $151.6 million (BOG approved project).
ANTICIPATED FACILITY SPECIFICATIONS:
- Cost: $151.6 Million
- Estimated Size: Approximately 200,000 sq. ft. of research, innovation and training space
- Planned university occupants: Biology, Microbiology, Biochemistry, Nutrition/Food Science, Physics, and Bioengineering departments
- Other Occupants: Industry and government partners from industry clusters targeted for job and investment creation
DESIRED OUTCOMES: Just as in the 1950's when Research Triangle Park was established, North Carolina must continue to invest in a diversified, competitive economy fueled by knowledge-driven industries that provide higher-skilled, higher-paying jobs. Additionally, the direct correlation between successful economic regions and the presence of vibrant research universities is well documented. Prior strategic investments at NC State, Duke and UNC-Chapel Hill have fueled growth of diverse academic/industrial clusters in the Triangle, so too will similar investments at ECU drive growth in clusters targeted by economic developers throughout the east.
ECU's RESEARCH ENGINE:
- ECU's external funding awards have increased 23.2% from 2004-05 to 2008-09 to $40,760,962. More recently, for the six-month period of July 2009 to January 2010 external funding awards are up 75.2% (from $18,515,703 to $32,434,769) over the same period the prior year.
- From 2004-05 to 2009-10, ECU's combined external funding awards from the Department of Defense, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and a $2.5M Department of Defense earmark for Operation Re-Entry totals $60,456,088.
MEASURABLE RETURNS:
The Life Sciences and Biotech Building will:
- Improve graduate starting salaries within the region
- Enable recruitment of industrial partners to be on or near the campus
- Strengthen recruitment and retention of jobs and investment for the region
- Increase the flow of federal research and development funding into eastern North Carolina
- Improve recruitment and retention of innovative researches and students to the region
- Increase production of needed STEM graduates
