Venture Development Center nears completion
October 6, 2008 — After six months of construction, the former cafeteria in Wheatley Hall is in the final stages of its transformation into the Venture Development Center, a collaborative and cross-disciplinary research space that will stimulate innovation among students and faculty, and help drive the Massachusetts economy.
The 18,000-square-foot facility, designed by Sasaki Associates, Inc., and built by J & J Contractors, Inc., is outfitted with four wet labs (two with fume hoods, and another two with the option of installing them at a later date), and two dry labs, as well as ten offices, which are expected to be licensed for 18- to 24-month periods. The Center will also feature space for conferences, presentations, and meetings. Two-thirds of the space will be dedicated to “non-hard sciences,” and, in a throwback to its roots, the VDC will also house a coffee bar, around which Vice Provost for Research Richard Antonak hopes “A-ha!” moments will happen as researchers cross paths in what he envisions as “a home away from home for visionaries.”
On the organizational side, the VDC will draw on the combined century-plus of business experience of its staff, including William Brah, assistant vice provost for research and executive director; John Ciccarelli, associate vice chancellor for government relations, public affairs, and economic development; Susan Daudelin, director of industry relations; and Christine DePalma, program director. The team will help entrepreneurs both within and outside the university who are looking to develop a new center, alliance or venture to create a business plan, get funding, and make the connections necessary to take an idea from concept to reality. Furthermore, by facilitating partnerships between the university, private industry, state, local, and federal government agencies, as well as quasi-governmental institutions, the VDC will enhance the school’s mission of forging stronger ties with the community, one of the cornerstones of the university’s Strategic Plan. For Brah, increasing the cachet of the university to that of its peers across the river will, in his words, “extend innovation along the Red Line.”
“We’re trying to bring innovation to this side of town,” he said, noting that he sees the VDC as a way to expand UMass Boston’s reach not only in Greater Boston, but also across the state and around the globe. Students will also benefit: The VDC will link them to paid internships, sponsor a business plan competition each year, and provide mentorship from an entrepreneur-inresidence, Dan Phillips, who has funded a dozen UMass Boston student scholarships over the past 15 years.
The idea of the VDC, which will begin operations in early 2009, has been germinating for years, Antonak said, but it was a university-commissioned report by the Battelle Technology Partnership Practice that helped solidify an action plan. The study defined the school’s sponsored program strengths, identified where there was room to grow, and suggested opportunities; one of those suggestions involved building stronger ties with business partners. But UMass Boston didn’t have interdepartmental or intercollegiate programs in place, which industry partners prefer to work with when conducting research aimed at putting new products on the market.
“We needed resources that allowed this collaboration,” Antonak said. “Before the VDC, the university’s resources were there, but they were ‘siloed’—they existed and, up to this point in time, thrived independent of each other, each in its separate location on campus.” The VDC team therefore had a twofold mission from the onset: Create a space for collaboration, and change the mind-set of academics used to working on projects only with their own team.
“The trick is to push research from projects to programs,” Brah said, noting that the VDC’s predecessor—the Venture Development Group—has been a key part of several success stories over the past four years, including GoKids Boston, and physics professor Gopal Rao’s Fourier Phase Contrast Microscope among them.
Development of an idea from concept to reality will be aided by the VDC in three phases, said Antonak.
“Once a prototype is developed, we will move the project to an incubator to test the proof-of-concept,” he continued. “Partners—angels, venture capitalists—will be brought in to make the product viable. Finally, we move to a manufacturer or production plant or a company is spun out of the incubator, yet it remains under the wing and guidance of all involved.”
Developing the VDC itself also involved some friends in high places, said Brah.
“UMass President Jack Wilson recognizes that all great universities have built [a facility like the VDC],” he said, adding that Chancellor Keith Motley’s support for the project has also been crucial. “He was visionary to commit that space at a time when, all across the school, people were stacked on top of each other. He knows the value of this for the university.”
Remarkably, UMass Boston is expected to derive that value—including an important boost to the total amount of research dollars ($45 million in the most recent fiscal year) flowing in to the university—without needing to invest any university money. The Department of Energy provided $1.4 million for the VDC’s feasibility study, demolition, and construction; State Senator Jack Hart’s 2005 economic stimulus bill, aimed at investing in science and technology innovation in the state, provided $5 million; and $1.5 million came from the Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration, which recognized that the state’s “innovation economy” had largely bypassed Dorchester.
What the VDC accomplishes with that money and the brainpower of the university’s faculty, students, and staff will be measurable on many levels. Brah expects that within three years, at least one of the eight Battelle study-identified faculty groups “will really take off”; that there will be a company living out of the VDC; and that at least one of the city’s prestigious foundations will be a partner. Antonak added that while traditional ROI benchmarks are important, those incalculable are equally so.
“ROI is not just money; it’s not just quantitative,” he said. “For UMass Boston, ROI equals intellectual property, students hired, royalties, grants … but a huge portion of it is changing the culture.
“We want to make investments in creative ideas that will build our reputation, which in turn will help us recruit faculty and students,” he explained, citing the creation of Google while its founders were at Stanford. “That will endear us to local and federal government officials and improve the standing of the university. I know we’ll have achieved that success when I’m interviewing a prospective psychology professor or student—or the next provost!—and they tell me the reason they want to come to UMass Boston is because of the VDC.”
By Geoffrey Kula, The University Reporter.
[Contact: William Brah; william.brah@umb.edu]