Partnerships

The CRI campus, also known as the Millennial Campus, is managed by CRI and is a direct reflection of the growth of UNC Charlotte’s research programs. The Millennial Campus designation has special significance for the University of North Carolina System and allows UNC Charlotte to efficiently engage with partner companies by enabling them to contract for use of research capabilities or facilities on the Millennial Campus, contract for sole-use space, and construct and manage privately owned buildings. The Millennial Campus covers 100 acres of land and currently includes eight buildings: Cameron Hall, Burson Hall, College of Health and Human Services, College of Education, Woodward Hall, Grigg Hall, Duke Centennial Hall and, as of this past year, Smith Hall. Construction has begun on a ninth building for Bioinformatics and planning is underway for an additional building for engineering research and education.

Two of our new research buildings were dedicated in September 2006: Duke Centennial Hall, home to The William States Lee College of Engineering, The Center for Biomedical Engineering Systems, The Center for Precision Metrology, the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Engineering Science, and the North Carolina Motorsports and Automotive Research Center; and Grigg Hall, home to the Center for Optoelectronicsand Optical Communications, and the university’s graduate-level physics program. The two buildings were named in honor of Duke Energy Corporation and Duke Energy Chairman Emeritus William H. Grigg.

In Fall 2007, CRI assumed responsibility for management and oversight of the Ben Craig Center (BCC), UNC Charlotte’s business incubator facility established in 1990. This move is consistent with the CRI mission of building university-business partnerships and will result in a renewed emphasis on collaboration between university researchers, university subject matter experts, and the entrepreneurs that populate the BCC. Preliminary plans have been made to construct a new building on the CRI campus that would house the BCC and other CRI functions.

CRI welcomed two Charlotte start-up companies as partners to the Millennial Campus this past year. HepatoSys, Inc. restores the function of donor livers for use in transplantation and evaluates the integrity of donor livers prior to initiation of the recipient operation. A-Metrics LLC has developed a new sensor technology that utilizes a patented method to track slight changes in pressure, temperature, humidity and record vibration frequencies in the sonar, seismic, and vocal ranges. Current applications include a more reliable detection of breast cancer, increased sensitivity of sonar devices, the identification of corrosive pipelines and voice recognition. Both companies were finalists in the Five Ventures® competition this year.

An example of a UNC Charlotte start-up company come full circle involves an exciting development this past year with Digital Optics Corporation, a company borne out of UNC Charlotte optoelectronics technology and a leader in the development and design of micro-optical solutions. In July 2006, San Jose-based Tessera Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSRA), a leading provider of miniaturization technologies for the electronics industry, acquired Digital Optics for $59.5 million. The acquisition provides Tessera with key technologies for the development of low-cost, miniaturized imaging solutions for high-volume consumer optics applications such as camera phones, next-generation DVD players and automotive applications. The Digital Optics facility in Charlotte is now Tessera’s Micro-Optics Center of Excellence.

As UNC Charlotte’s life science research capabilities grow, CRI continues to enjoy its partnership with the Greater Charlotte office of the North Carolina Biotechnology Center (NCBC) on its campus. NCBC assists with funding for life science faculty research, recruitment, laboratory equipment and university conferences. This past year, NCBC helped support UNC Charlotte’s Biotech and Five Ventures® conferences and co-hosted a Nanobiotechnology conference in November 2007 with the university and Carolinas Medical Center.

UNC Charlotte’s research capabilities represent a vital economic development tool for business attraction. CRI recently assisted in the successful recruitment of several companies to the Charlotte region. Turbomeca, part of the SAFRAN group, a French aerospace and technology company, manufactures low- and medium power gas turbine turboshaft engines for helicopters, aircraft and missiles, as well as turbines for land, industrial and marine applications. Raleigh-based Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE: RHT), one of the larger and more recognized companies dedicated to open source software and the largest distributor of the Linux operating system, opened a location on the North Carolina Research Campus in Kannapolis