The University’s Innovation Park is being recognized yet again as its executive director, Charles D’Agostino, was appointed to the Association of University Research Parks executive committee for 2017.
After serving as president of AURP for 2015-2016, D’Agostino now joins a board of directors from research parks nationwide. Those with AURP membership make up 380,000 direct jobs and have a $9.4 billion impact on their local economies.
“The purpose of the innovation park is to literally commercialize LSU technology to actually help faculty [and] students develop businesses based on their studies or their research at the University,” D’Agostino said.
The idea for the Innovation Park began in 2005. The goal is to help faculty and students use their research to create businesses. According to the Innovation Park’s website, “by helping researchers bring new technology to market, the LSU Innovation Park creates high-quality jobs, benefits the community, and enhances the image of Louisiana.”
Innovation Park helps develop these businesses through access to capital and business planning. It can also possibly bring in attorneys or accountants, as well as marketing specialists not normally on staff, among other services.
“We would meet with you one-on-one, we’d talk to you and discuss your idea, we’d offer you assistance, we’d help you actually build a business plan,” D’Agostino said of the Innovation Park’s process of developing businesses. “If you needed to raise capital, we would help you raise the money you needed to start the company. We would offer you space in the Incubator … We would do anything it took to help you launch that business.”
The Louisiana Business & Technology Center’s Business Incubator works with the Innovation Park and, according to its website, is “an organization designed to enhance the development and growth of new and established businesses by assisting entrepreneurs with company operations and supplying resources that are fundamental for success.”
Both the Innovation Park and the LBTC have received many awards and recognitions, including AURP’s 2013 Emerging Research Park Award.
AURP is an association that represents around 350 research parks worldwide and has a membership of about 600 people who deal with research parks from architects to lab equipment suppliers. The membership consists of all of the finer research parks in the world, D’Agostino said.
“The good thing for being involved in an international organization is it brings a lot of prestige to LSU,” D’Agostino said. “It puts us as one of the leaders in research parks worldwide.”
Because of the exposure the University receives by having D’Agostino on the board, visitors travel from all over to observe how the University’s Innovation Park works and how they can apply some of its successes, D’Agostino said.
“LSU is one of the leading research parks in the country, and we have been recognized as such and we’re very proud of that,” D’Agostino said.