Agenda - Economic Development Authority - 01/25/2018

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STEM -Based Incubators These businesses within the incubator range from marketing companies to agricultural technology creation firms to agricultural harvesting and processing companies. Most of these companies specialize in fields relating to STEM, while some provide support to that sector. Within the STEM field, the Park has a specialty in agriculture -related fields. Part of this comes from the long-standing tradition of NDSU as being a school that has a large agricultural program. The park operates on roughly 24 acres of open land that can be utilized by tenants for research and development of software and hardware. To be part of the Research Park, NDSU requires tenants to meet a set of criteria in line with the beliefs of the Park. The first item of this criteria is to "Be involved in the advancement and development of new technology." The Park is dedicated to advancing technology, and the Park expects this of the tenants as well. The second criteria is, "Be willing to establish a working relationship with North Dakota State University." This criteria is essential to the workings of the Park and allows the Park to stipulate that its tenants work in tandem and add to what already exists within NDSU. The Park itself gives the following examples as to how a tenant in the Park may work with NDSU: • "Jointly funded research & development projects and technology transfer activities • Create partnerships to enhance the business environment dedicated to applied research and technological discovery for the benefit of NDSU's faculty, staff and students • Facilitate the transfer and application of scientific research for North Dakota State University and to the global economy and to the global economy. " Source: https://wwwndsuresearchpark.com/available-space/open-land/ The third criteria has to do with the allowed industries within the park. The fields allowed within the Park include, "material sciences, biosciences and life technology, information technology, nanotechnology, and advanced manufacturing and sensors/micro-electronics." The Park is not completely strict on these requirements. They allow a "Center of Excellence" that have a clear concentration and a measure of knowledge and expertise which meet a "criteria outlined by the North Dakota State Board of Higher Education." The final criteria that the Park holds is that prospective tenants are reviewed by an incubator advisory committee. While not explicitly stated, the Park notes that "emphasis is given to North Dakota State University patented and licensed technology." In tandem with this, all prospective tenants and companies are required to work within the Park's guidelines and are subject to final approval by the NDSU President. The Technology Incubator works to encourage entrepreneurs to foster innovation and encourage ingenuity. The Incubator side of the NDSU Research and Technology Park is more focused on general business facilitations, similar to those that would be found in a cooperative work space. The incubator offers "state-of-the-art" benefits that allow their tenants to present a professional business appearance. The Incubator is made of a 50,000 Business Incubators and the City of Ramsey 12