Innovation Circle Case Statement

A Case for Support

T h e U n i v e r s i T y o f n o r T h C a r o l i n a a t C h a p e l h i l l2

in the ivory Tower. rather, with one bold stroke, Carolina led a young country to a future filled with highly educated citizens of all creeds and backgrounds, giving generations access to america’s promise of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

it is time to be bold again. even bolder. We must do more than lead in american public higher education. We must extend our impact to the region, state, nation, and the world.

holden Thorp, Chancellor of the University of north Carolina at Chapel hill

on oct. 12, 2010, Chancellor Thorp will launch the University of north Carolina at

Chapel hill’s innovate@Carolina Campaign. The campaign will aim to raise $125 million to make Carolina a world leader in launching university-born ideas for the good of society.

Why oct. 12? Because that date, in 1793, marked the birth of public higher education in america. The laying of old east’s cornerstone proclaimed to the nation that Carolina refused to follow the path of cloistered elitism, sequestered

A Time for Bold Action

we have so much work ahead of us. our to-

do list is nothing less than the greatest

problems of our time: cure diseases, and

get those cures to all the people who

need them. find and invent clean energy.

inspire students in our public schools. feed

seven billion people. describe the world,

and replace conflict with understanding.

Carolina’s Challenge for a Better World 3

to assess the current state of knowledge in a disci-pline, augment that knowledge through rigorous new research, and share the product of this new knowledge in innovative ways. in short, a culture of innovation.

although humanity faces great challenges, we have great human capital to respond. among our 3,500 faculty, we can claim a nobel prize winner and members of the national academies in the sciences and medicine as well as the arts and humanities. our student population boasts many of the nation’s best and brightest high school graduates and graduate students. and these students can pursue more than 100 fields of study and earn bachelor’s, master’s, and doc-toral degrees, along with professional degrees in fields including dentistry, medicine, pharmacy, business, journalism, and law.

Carolina is physically located at the nexus of innovation and entrepreneurship. Just miles from two other world-class research universities, Duke University and nC state, UnC-Chapel hill has forged extensive partnerships with these institu-tions. The research Triangle park (rTp) stands just 10 miles from the Carolina campus as a testament to the power of entrepreneurial think-ing. Founded in 1959, rTp is one of the largest research parks in the nation where a concentra-tion of corporate research-and-development facilities and a highly educated workforce have fueled a thriving entrepreneurial economy.

and so our stage is set with tremendous potential. We have the will to turn that potential into even greater achievement. We must now align our values, resources, and processes to drive our culture of innovation. The innovate@Carolina Campaign will give us the way.

The world needs help. read any front page, watch any newscast, check any rss feed.

From oil spills to flu pandemics to suicide bomb-ers, every day seems to bring another horror.

and yet there are great institutions that can help. and Carolina is one of them. The innovate@Carolina Campaign will set in motion our response.

as the nation’s first public university, Carolina has always epitomized public service. Further, because of our commitment to liberal arts, strong technical areas, and professional schools, our fac-ulty and students see the world broadly and think critically. They are wired to innovate.

Carolina is both compelled and poised to accelerate and apply its innovative and entrepre-neurial mindset to help solve the world’s most recalcitrant problems.

our strength comes from fostering creativ-ity and discovery in the classroom, the lab, and the studio, as well as in communities beyond our campus. our liberal arts tradition, combined with excellence in scientific research and profes-sional programs, equips our faculty and students

The Challenge


more than promoting a single professor’s eco-friendly business concept or getting research findings published in academic journals. such efforts are important, but the scope of the innovate@Carolina Campaign will be nothing less than transformative: We will build a culture of innovation that permeates every corner of campus, from the chemist in Caudill labs to the poet in Greenlaw hall. We will redouble our efforts to leverage scientific and medical research for society’s good, and we will advance work in the humanities that leads to greater understanding of the challenges the world faces.

What’s more, to effectively address these com-plex challenges, this culture will be collaborative, with the chemist’s science and the poet’s verse informing each other.

The key to our roadmap’s success is simple: We must raise $125 million to make it a reality. and we aim to do so by June 30, 2013. The world’s problems won’t wait.

in early 2010, Chancellor Thorp assembled groups of faculty, staff, students, alumni,

parents, and friends of the University — many with extensive experience leading innovation in science, business, medicine, nonprofits, and academia. Their charge: Develop a strategic plan to enable Carolina to increase the volume and accelerate the pace at which important ideas created here are applied for a better world.

The resulting roadmap scales far beyond the conventional notions of how a university can do good outside its borders. We envision much

The Way Forward

We will build a culture of innovation that permeates

every corner of campus.


$6 million (expendable) to fund grants tackling the “World’s Greatest Challenges.” Every two years for the next six years, the campus will coalesce around a theme that addresses a pressing global priority, such as water quality and its critical role in supporting healthy communities around the world.

The Innovation Circle identified these major funding goals for the Innovate@Carolina Campaign:

$25 million to create a permanent endowment supporting innovation. This endowment will create a group of “Innovation Funds” to be awarded on a competitive basis to faculty, students, and staff to support the most promising innovations on campus.

$15 million (endowment) to create five Applied Sciences Professorships. The faculty filling these positions will bring the expertise that lies at the intersection of disciplines. They will help colleagues across campus con-nect basic sciences with engineering, propelling the University into new areas of discovery and application.

$15 million (endowment and expendable) to hire entrepreneurs-in-residence. Drawn from the ranks of outstanding commercial and social entrepreneurs both on and off campus, these experts will mentor and counsel students and faculty interested or involved in entrepreneurial ventures. They also will use their professional contacts to help students secure off-campus internships and faculty develop relationships with the private and non-profit sectors.


campaign goals


the skills to start successful ventures of all kinds: commercial, social, scientific, and artistic. Additional funding will provide ongoing support to the highly successful CEI programs including Launching the Venture, the Chancellor’s Faculty Boot Camp on Entrepreneurship, the Carolina Challenge, and First Year Seminars in innovation and entrepreneurship.

$10 million (expendable) to create a Student Innovation Hub. The Innovation Hub will serve as a physical nexus on campus where students, faculty, and staff can come together to engage in innovation and entrepreneurial efforts. Preferably an existing public space, centrally located and transformed over time into an Innovation Hub — open to the entire University community — to nurture, inspire and celebrate the innovation culture of Carolina. Such a space would offer resources to innovators and entrepreneurs who do not have a natural home in a specific unit, provide spaces for ad hoc collaborations, and serve as a common space to celebrate our campus-wide innovation culture.

$6 million (endowment) to fund two Innovation Professorships. Innovation Professors, selected on a competitive basis to pursue a promising innovation project, will be exempted from the normal structures of their academic position at Carolina for up to three years.

$25 million (endowment) to support teaching and research, including the Minor in Entrepreneurship and other successful programs of the Carolina Entrepreneurial Initiative. Critical to promoting a culture of innovation, the interdisciplinary minor in the College of Arts and Sciences encourages students to think and act entrepreneurially, teaching them

campaign goals


Carolina’s Challenge for a Better World 7Carolina’s Challenge for a Better World 7

$5 million (endowment) to support the Innovation Scholars Program. Expanding the Carolina Innovation Scholarship program will enable the University to recruit and support more students who show outstanding promise as entrepreneurs with scholarships that cover the full cost of tuition, fees, room and board, renewable for four years.

$3.3 million (expendable) to expand the Carolina KickStart program campus wide. Carolina KickStart, in collaboration with Office of Technology Development and Center of Entrepreneurial Studies, will improve the probability of successfully commercializing UNC faculty technology by seeding startups and providing comprehensive consulting services.

$14.7 million (expendable and endowment) to fund emerging innovation projects. The remaining $14.7 million in the Innovate@Carolina Campaign will fund other important efforts that will include seed funding for social innovations created at Carolina; Research Triangle and Global competitive collaboration grants; grants funding studies in innovation and entrepreneurship to assess what approaches are most effective as agents of change; and marketing efforts to collectively nurture Carolina’s culture of innovation for a better world.

we must be bold, again.

return on investment. every investor expects it. The innovate@Carolina Campaign takes

this to heart. and as with investors in any enter-prise, supporters will receive an annual report and be invited to an annual innovate@Carolina meeting convened by the Chancellor. Both will document our progress in turning ideas into solutions, using rigorous empirical metrics to measure the performance of every innovate@Carolina program.

investors want impact. as a charter share-holder in the innovate@Carolina enterprise your investment will amount to much more than a thicker stock portfolio. as Chancellor Thorp says, Carolina’s “to-do list is nothing less than the greatest problems of our time.” and so this cam-paign represents nothing less than the chance to change the world.

The Ultimate ROI

innovate.unc.edu

Innovation Circle Case Statement

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Transcript of Innovation Circle Case Statement