Raimondo, Business & Education Leaders Continue Push for Innovation Proposal

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Governor Raimondo, along with business and education leaders,
today called on the House Finance Committee to support an innovation campus bond
question for the November ballot.
«Rhode Island needs to skate to where the puck will be in the new economy,» Raimondo
said. «This proposal will create unique opportunities that will foster more research
and development initiatives and encourage innovative companies to come to our state,
creating more high-skill, high-wage jobs.»
«Partnerships among universities, medical centers and companies provide a launchpad
for cutting-edge innovation,» Commerce Secretary Stefan Pryor said.»We need to create
innovation campuses that enable and foster such partnerships. These campuses will
attract private capital, propel business growth, and create jobs. It will take
leadership
and investment from the state to catalyze interest but, if we find the way, we will
create hubs of public-private collaboration and will generate economic energy.»
«The Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce strongly supports the Governor’s innovation
campus bond referendum proposal,» Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce President
Laurie White said. «This is money that will encourage further investment from the
business community to turn these innovation campuses into thriving centers of new
research and commercialization. This in turn, we believe, will deliver well-paid
jobs for Rhode Islanders in fields that are crucial to our future.»
«The University of Rhode Island is strongly positioned in multiple fields to act
as an anchor institution in one or more of the innovation campuses that would be
created by this bond referendum,» University of Rhode Island President Dr. David
M. Dooley said. «We are committed to developing public-private partnerships that
utilize our state’s unique academic strengths. We believe innovation campuses will
be magnets for companies, talent and investment in Rhode Island.»
«As an innovation voucher recipient, we have experienced firsthand how the state
is helping to build new research relationships among companies and university
researchers,
an effort which is long overdue,» EpiVax Managing Director Cliff Grimm said. «The
innovation campus would foster such partnerships on a larger scale, creating an
innovation ecosystem that retains and draws talent, jobs and businesses to Rhode
Island.»
«As a company that is at the nexus of medicine and design, we are huge proponents
of projects that bring partners together across areas of expertise to generate new
ideas,» Ximedica President and Chief Executive Officer Randy Barko said. «An innovation
campus would allow companies like Ximedica to have unprecedented access to the research
at partner universities and would encourage continued or even increased investment
in the state. It’s projects like the innovation campus that would make Rhode Island
a destination for businesses looking to expand their R&D.»