Jennifer Clark - City-University RD&D Partnerships - GCS16

1. City-University RD&D
Partnerships
Georgia Tech and the City of Atlanta
Dr. Jennifer Clark
Georgia Tech Center for Urban Innovation

2. Research, Development, and
Deployment Partnerships
• Georgia Tech has a history of “civic” research
partnerships in various forms
• Some are technology development and design projects
while others are technology diffusion projects
• Some are based in curriculum and others in “sponsored
research”
• A typology follows:

3. Typology of City-University Partnerships
• Studio/Workshop/Practice Course
Collaborations (student-centered)
o Typically a studio brief designed by faculty and client
o Students address/respond brief during the course
o Students present coursework to client
o Faculty evaluate student performance
o Fees/Sponsorships vary

4. Typology of City-University Partnerships
• Design “Competitions” or “IdeaLabs” (student-
driven)
o Student teams address a client competition
o Faculty usually provide guidance to student teams
o Not performed for course credit
o Increasingly competitions are driven by public sector clients
o Historically driven by trade associations and/or non-profits (to
encourage focus on materials use or particular sites of interest)

5. Typology of City-University Partnerships
• Research Contracts (researcher/faculty-led
projects)
o Often analysis and impact studies using established
methods/technologies
o Led by faculty or established researchers
o Commissioned by a city as a fee for service project
o Similar in scope
o Often used to fund and train graduate students
o Conclusions/Findings empirically-driven
o Discrete deliverables on established timelines

6. Typology of City-University Partnerships
• Research, Design, Deployment Partnerships
(faculty-led projects)
o Technology design and diffusion projects
o New technologies, new data, novel applications
o Research design includes scalability and dissemination efforts
o Developing the “industry standard” rather than applying it
o Requires specialist faculty and specialist equipment
o Pre-commercialization similar to R&D projects with industry partners

7. MetroLab Network
GTCUI and City of Atlanta are ifounding members of the
MetroLab Network, a newly-launched national network of
city-university partnerships. CUI leads Georgia Tech’s
participation in MetroLab along with the City of Atlanta and
Georgia State.
The MetroLab Network is an initiative of the White House’s Office of
Science and Technology Policy. The Network will research, develop and
deploy R&D on “smarter cities,” in particular focusing on:
● Urban Infrastructure systems
● City services
● Democratic governance
● Public policy & management

8. Georgia Tech and Atlanta
• Importance of a dedicated academic research center to R,D& D
partnerships
• Importance of a robust city “innovation team” or “urban mechanics”
• Critical commitment of leadership --- mayor(s), university leadership,
and civic and corporate stakeholders ---to a “smart cities” agenda
• Familiarity with external partnerships on research and development
• Trust

9. Innovation Districts
Highlighting Tech Square’s innovation ecosystem in Putting
Innovation in Place: Georgia Tech’s Innovation Neighborhood of
“Tech Square,” GTCUI is codifying and sharing the “Atlanta
model” with other urban universities and internationally.
Sustainable Cities
GTCUI is facilitating intersecting nodes of layered research,
by connecting a $2.5 million NSF-funded civil and
environmental engineering project with policymakers in ten
cities through the City Energy Project, including the City of
Atlanta’s Office of Sustainability.

10. Spatial proximity
and design in
Innovation Districts
Exploring relationship of
urban form and
innovation:
• Site location
• Architecture
• Mixed Uses
• Urban Design
• Connectivity

11. Urban Sustainability Modeling and Policy
• One of 10 U.S. cities selected for an NSF
RIPS project
• Energy + Water + Transportation
+ (new) Food Systems component
• Evaluation of alternatives across
“domains”
• Partnering with City of Atlanta’s Office of
Sustainability and the City Energy Project

12. GreenLink: Facilitating Start-Ups

13. Cities as Dynamic Spaces of Economic
Development and Entrepreneurship
Ongoing Research Projects:
• “Dual Deployment” project: smart cities sensors technologies ---
interoperability, data analytics, standards, and privacy
• Co-working: Flexible urban spaces for entrepreneurial development
• Innovation Districts: Spillover effects, urban design, and connectivity
• Urban Food Systems: Mobility, Supply Chains, Firm Strategies

14. Urban Food Systems
GTCUI has captured the Food Truck Movement’s
transformative impact on Atlanta with their empirical analysis,
and upcoming chapter in From Loncheras to Lobsta Love:
Food Trucks, Cultural Identity and Social Justice. This story of
local industry adaptation and reliance of pseudo-private
spaces illustrates cultural identity building, contributing to
existing food trucks theory.

15. “Convenings”:
Connecting the
International
Academic
Discourse to Today’s
Urban Questions

16. Regional Studies Association North
America Conference 2016
GTCUI is a research leader with the Regional Studies
Association, driving the decision for the RSA to host their
2016 North America Conference at Georgia Tech in
Atlanta. International, multidisciplinary scholars will attend
and CUI’s guidance will ensure participation by key Atlanta
academic and civic leaders.
The conference will focus on the policy implications of
emerging forms of governance and policy delivery relative
to uneven development and inequality in a post-crisis era
of ongoing market liberalization, financialization, and
global competition.
Conference Tracks:
• Smart Cities, Smart Regions
• Regional Innovation: Theory, Methods, Practice
• Territory, Politics, Governance
• Sustainable Cities and Regions
• Emerging Community, Urban, and Regional Identities
• Emerging Community, Urban, and Regional Identities
• Labor Markets in Cities and Regions
• Regional Economies: SMEs andScale-Up

17. Benefits of City University RD&D
Partnerships
• Similar to industry and university R&D partnerships
• Affordable, specialized, empirically-oriented researchers
• Builds a specialized labor markets of urban technologists
• Builds institutional capacity in cities and universities on public sector challenges
and opportunities
• Brings real-world problems/questions into the research design phase