Recently representatives from the Mayo Clinic Advisory Group, DMC EDA, City of Rochester, Discovery Square Project Team, and local business owners gathered in Madison, WI for an overview of bioscience research and development in one of our closest comparable markets. The trip reinforced two core values of the DMC vision: strengthening public and private partnerships and building an ecosystem from within. This aligns well with Discovery Square, a new home to the future of biomedical, research, education, and technology innovation and a keystone to the DMC economic development strategy.
The group toured University Research Park (URP), the core of the bioscience research and development conducted at the UW-Madison, and home base for 126 companies, many of which are private-sector biomedical companies. University Research Park supports nearly 9,300 jobs statewide and generates $43 million in state and local tax revenue each year. The presentation by URP leadership provided an opportunity to more deeply explore both the things that have been successful there and the lessons that have been learned over years of experience.
The group then toured the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery (WID), a visionary public-private partnership made up of two world-class research institutes: the similarly-named Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, a part of UW-Madison under the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education, and the Morgridge Institute for Research, a private, nonprofit research institute dedicated to improving human health by accelerating scientific discovery to patient delivery. The state-of-the-art WID Building, which opened in 2010, brings together scientists and researchers from a broad spectrum of disciplines, such as the arts, humanities, social sciences, education, business, and law. It also includes extensive public spaces in its Town Center intended to promote dialogue as a fertile crossroads for ideas among diverse parts of UW–Madison and the larger community.
To read first-hand about the experience in Madison, click here to visit the blog of Jamie Sundsbak, founder of BioAM, local entrepreneur, and one of the community members invited to participate on the trip.