< Previous64 JULY 2023 SITE SELECTION Washington, D.C.-based National Association of Counties (NACo), says it’s no surprise counties in the South and Midwest are dominating. “As I’m sure you know,” he writes, “the South in particular is one of the highest growth areas in the country. Counties in the South are also receiving the highest share of funding from the bipartisan infrastructure law (BIL) to invest in things like water and sewer; surface transportation (roads, bridges, transit); and broadband.” Among data points Shrawder shares on the Top 20 America’s Best Counties by overall projects are: • Strong population growth between 2010 and 2020, led by Collin County (36.1%) and Travis County (26%) in Texas; • Robust GDP growth over 20 years ending in 2021, again led by Collin County (284.3%); Travis County (174.8%); • Substantial FDI project counts and capex between 2003 and 2020 — 6,676 projects in all, with New York County, Miami-Dade County, Harris County (Houston) and Los Angeles County showing investment totals in the tens of billions of dollars. Shrawder and his colleagues are analyzing county use of BIL funding now and see compelling evidence in the South and Midwest in particular of projects that incentivize or encourage corporate and commercial growth. They are also tracking county investments of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds, which initially went to “rescue” functions such as community aid and public health. “However, we’re starting to see significant investment in capital expenditures such as infrastructure, housing and economic development that would again build the foundation for some of the tracking you’re doing on commercial growth,” he says. “As the CHIPS & Science Act, the Inflation Reduction Act and other federal funding gets rolled out, we’re eager to showcase how counties are leveraging those funds to build communities and lay the foundation for this type of commercial growth.” C onsider the governance structure of the research or science park with which your organization is most closely affiliated. Your company may have an R&D lab in an urban innovation district, or it may be a tenant at a university-run research park on the outskirts of town. Perhaps you’re looking for space where it can pursue product development and commercialization. Many factors determine the best location for innovation activities — cost of real estate, access to talent and capital and where employees want to work, for example. Who is at the table steering the direction of the science park so that all RESEARCH & SCIENCE PARKS by MARK AREND mark.arend@siteselection.com A Bigger Leadership Table Can Accelerate Innovation City Square connects residents, students, professionals and entrepreneurs in the heart of Philadelphia’s University City innovation district. Photos courtesy of University City Science Center SITE SELECTION JULY 2023 6566 JULY 2023 SITE SELECTION stakeholders and the location itself benefi t? Does the table come with extensions? A strong case can be made for having multiple universities and other key participants at the table and that a nonprofi t foundation should be in charge of setting it. Today’s challenges seeking innovative solutions are too complex for one academic or other entity to tackle. Take agriculture and food supply, for example. Work on one facet, like crop productivity, soon touches such areas as energy, water security and availability, environmental and climate issues, air quality, medicine and community health and wellness. “ ere are people who excel in diff erent parts of that big picture that should be a part of fi nding those solutions,” says Mason Ailstock, president of the Rowen Foundation, which is overseeing development of Rowen, a ,-acre knowledge community northeast of Atlanta that will focus on innovation in the medical, environmental and agriculture fi elds. “Knowledge communities are better when they understand it’s not one fi nite problem to take on. ere are so many connections — let’s have as many experts involved in that as we can.” Rowen’s Board of Directors includes representatives from fi ve area higher education institutions: University of Georgia, Georgia Tech, Emory University, Spelman College and Georgia Gwinnett College. “ ere’s a lot of enthusiasm around Rowen, a lot of eyebrows being raised,” says Ailstock. “One economic development colleague in the private sector told us that Georgia has never had anything like this — this scale, led by a nonprofi t with multiple universities, a very clear vision of the types of companies we want to recruit. He said as a site selector, that makes his job much easier. It means he won’t bring us deals a year, but for the ones that fi t well with what we want to do, Rowen will be extremely competitive.” Diversity Drives Entrepreneurship e University City Science Center (UCSC) in Philadelphia is the oldest urban science park in the U.S., having been founded in . It’s a key driver of the $ billion in ecosystem value created from July to December . Its -member Board of Directors includes representatives from universities, banks, investors, law fi rms, a medical It’s important for all research parks to understand the fundamental gaps within their ecosystem and who needs to be around the table to address that.” Tiff any Wilson , President & CEO, University City Science Center, Philadelphia s important for It’s important for 68 JULY 2023 SITE SELECTION device company and a company that trains and employs neurodiverse adults to carry out project- based work, including software development, software testing, database analytics, cybersecurity, back-office accounting, data entry and auditing reports. “It’s a huge mistake to have only universities and/or healthcare systems at the center of the innovation activity,” UCSC President and CEO Tiffany Wilson tells Site Selection. “There needs to be some sort of neutral activity that serves as the convener to bring together all the stakeholders that touch innovation on its way to making society better. Many universities think they can do it all themselves — they want to own the public relations and the money. But fundamentally they do not have the capacity to achieve a sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystem without the engagement of the private sector. The notion of expanding the table is critical and timely.” Wilson says healthcare is a recent focus of UCSC, which includes helping entrepreneurs in digital health, diagnostics, pharmaceuticals and other fields scale their technologies and achieve marketplace adoption. The Science Center is convening stakeholders in the healthcare sector to facilitate that process. At the same time, diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) is central to its mission of prioritizing the technologies that can help address health equity issues and prioritize its programming and meetings. “We’re thinking more proactively, more inclusively, about the customers we need to engage Mason Ailstock, President, Rowen Foundation SITE SELECTION JULY 2023 69 with to bring to the startups that will help connect those dots,” says Wilson. “We’ve added a chief medical affairs officer [Kevin Baumlin, MD] to our team to help us in this area. He speaks healthcare executive, he speaks physician, he’s an informaticist and can help us connect better with those people. Consistent with the DEI theme, we’re investing more time in helping diverse founders of innovative life sciences and healthcare technologies who otherwise wouldn’t have the means or support from their networks to try an entrepreneurial path. It’s important for all research parks to understand the fundamental gaps within their ecosystem and who needs to be around the table to address that.” Complexity Requires Teamwork Rowen’s Mason Ailstock concurs. “Understanding the complexities of the many relationships you deal with on a day-to-day basis on your Board, in the community, inside the universities and other partners; crafting clear objectives that are both near term to see success in shorter timelines, but also passing a long- term vision of what you believe you can create together around this bigger table is an exciting thing to do. It takes a team, because you need that diversity of inputs, even within your own team, that have different experiences, that have different convictions and passions to notice blind spots, to make the invitation to be present in different conversations. “There is inherent complexity associated with building a bigger table and building these places that are truly meant to be multi-generational,” Ailstock says. “If we really do our jobs, then we have our hands in these places, in building these tables and creating the space and the resources for all these folks to be successful.” 70 JULY 2023 SITE SELECTION Amid Disruption and Diff usion, Silicon Valley Still Tops Findings from the Global Startup Ecosystems Report 2023 also highlight emerging and surging locations. T here’s no way to sugarcoat it: e technology sector is in the midst of an unprecedented slowdown,” writes JF Gauthier, founder and CEO of Startup Genome, in “ e State of the Global Startup Ecosystem Report ” (GSER ). Produced by Startup Genome and the Global Entrepreneurship Network, the report is based on extensive research and analysis of data from . million startups across global ecosystems. Some of those leading ecosystems are seeing infl ated valuations punctured and dramatic market corrections, Gauthier observes. “Some critics have been rooting for the crisis to take Silicon Valley down a peg or two,” he writes. “But anyone vested in entrepreneurial innovation should root for a Silicon Valley that can continue to lead and strengthen the global startup revolution by investing in and partnering with great people and organizations all around the world.” It appears Silicon Valley is doing just that. e rankings fi nd the top three ecosystems have maintained their positions since , with Silicon Valley remaining at the top, followed by New York City and London tied at No. . at victory comes even as deals and company headcounts have contracted heavily in Silicon Valley over the past two years. “Tech companies have laid off hundreds of thousands of the tech workers they hired in ’s boom time in recent months — in March, Crunchbase put the number so far in at around , workers in U.S.- based tech companies (or tech companies with a large U.S. workforce),” says the report. “While state governments, especially California’s, are reeling from loss of revenue and face budget defi cits after years of surpluses, the spark of these layoff s could create an explosion of startups. ere is a new level of availability of top-notch talent with tech know-how and industry expertise looking for new projects.” “ by ADAM BRUNS adam.bruns@siteselection.com STARTUP & INNOVATION HUBS San Jose, California, which hosts the SubZERO Festival in the SoFa District every summer, also hosts enough startup activity alongside its regional neighbors to help Silicon Valley retain its titls as the No. 1 Global Startup Ecosystem. Photo courtesy of Visit San Jose72 JULY 2023 SITE SELECTION Signs are strong those new projects are coming around. “In mid-2023, Silicon Valley is undergoing a rebirth moment with signs of renewal including Atomic Semi bringing semiconductors back to the ecosystem and the constellation of AI startups emerging from the region, in part driven by OpenAI’s recent success,” the report states. “However, Silicon Valley as the cutting-edge frontier has dissipated and diffused across the U.S. and the world, thanks in part to the very success of the technologies that came out of its previous cycle allowing remote work, outsourcing and automation.” Indeed, concludes one section of the report, “Reflecting AI’s increasing use and intersection with other sub-sectors, AI & Big Data is the sub-sector with the highest count of total VC deals, making up 28% of the global share in 2022. It also has the highest growth in number of exits, at 74%, from 2017–2018 to 2021–2022, and experienced a 34% increase in Series A count for the same period. As Deep Tech innovations become more integrated TOP 30 GLOBAL STARTUP ECOSYSTEMS ECOSYSTEM OVERALL RANK Silicon Valley 1 New York City 2 (tied) London 2 (tied) Los Angeles 4 Tel Aviv 5 Boston 6 Beijing 7 Singapore 8 Shanghai 9 Seattle 10 Washington, D.C. 11 Seoul 12 Berlin 13 Amsterdam-Delta 14 Tokyo 15 ECOSYSTEM OVERALL RANK San Diego 16 Toronto-Waterloo 17 Paris 18 Chicago 19 Sydney 20 (tied) Bengaluru-Karnataka 20 (tied) Stockholm 22 Miami 23 Delhi 24 Austin 25 São Paulo 26 Philadelphia 27 Denver-Boulder 28 Atlanta 29 Vancouver 30 Source: Startup Genome SITE SELECTION JULY 2023 73 into the startup world, Deep Tech’s exit amount has grown faster than other technologies from 2017–2018 to 2021–2022, at 326% vs. 225%.” Top 30 & Runners-Up By arrangement with Startup Genome, here are other findings from the 112-page report, which identifies the top 30 global ecosystems and 10 runners-up. “These ecosystems,” the report says, “are more mature than other ecosystems globally, featuring more exits over $50 million and more funding activity.” • Boston and Beijing have both slipped out of the top five to No. 6 and No. 7 respectively, losing two positions each. This has paved the way for Los Angeles to rise to No. 4 and Tel Aviv to No. 5, both gaining two spots. • All major Chinese ecosystems dropped in the overall rankings: Shenzhen moved down 12 places, Beijing two, and Shanghai one, now standing at No. 35, No. 7 and No. 9, respectively. • Indian ecosystems continue to rise, with Mumbai leading the way by moving up five places to a tie at No. 31. Bengaluru-Karnataka and Delhi both moved up two places, to No. 20 and No. 24, respectively. • Melbourne has moved up an impressive six places from last year, to reach No. 33. The Australian ecosystem experienced a 43% increase in Ecosystem Value, to $25 billion. Hot Spots & Rising Ecosystems Singapore has entered the top 10 ecosystems for the first time, moving up an impressive 10 places from No. 18 last year. The ecosystem increased 100% in the count of exits over $1 billion to a total 10 RUNNERS-UP ECOSYSTEM OVERALL RANK Mumbai 31 (tied) Salt Lake City 31 (tied) Melbourne 33 Dallas 34 Shenzhen 35 Zurich 36 Munich 37 Hangzhou 38 Greater Helsinki 39 Montreal 40 Source: Startup GenomeNext >