New fund, familiar centers and a piece of history
University Trustees announced a new fund to help commercialize research activities, learned about the work of some of Carolina's centers and institutes and received a centuries-old piece of history during their January Meeting.
Carolina ranks among the top 10 research universities in the country, and University leaders want to capitalize on that success to transform ideas from the lab to the marketplace.
Translating critical faculty in research to ways that directly benefit society, and at the same time, supporting innovation and entrepreneurial activities across campus have been priorities in recent years.
The University added two exclamation points to those ongoing efforts on Thursday (Jan. 22) with the announcements of a new venture fund to support start-ups and a new position in the chancellor’s cabinet to help the University maximize its economic impact on the state by accelerating innovation and entrepreneurship.
Judith Cone was named as the interim vice chancellor of commercialization and economic development.
Chancellor Carol L. Folt enjoys a presentation from the Institute of Marine Sciences during a meeting of the Board of Trustees at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Chancellor Carol L. Folt and Board of Trustees Chair Lowry Caudill said Thursday that no one is better equipped to fill the newly created position than Cone, who came to Carolina in 2009 as former Chancellor Holden Thorp’s special assistant for innovation and entrepreneurship. She had previously served as vice president of emerging strategies at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, where she had worked for 15 years.
More recently, Cone has served as interim director of the Frank Hawkins Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise and will continue in that role.
Creation of the new position stemmed from a campus-wide, comprehensive five-year review on commercialization and industry relations, and is strongly endorsed by the Board of Trustee Innovation and Impact Committee.
“With the innovation and entrepreneurial efforts over the past 10 years, with the Innovation Roadmap now four years old, with the work of our board’s Innovation and Impact Committee the past two-and-a-half years and with the leadership and vision of Chancellor Folt, Carolina is positioned to deliver and have tremendous economic impact on the state of North Carolina,” Caudill said.
Joseph Jordan, director of The Sonya Hayes Stone Center for Black Culture and History, presents at a meeting of the Board of Trustees at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Support for start-ups
Caudill also thanked Trustee Sallie Shuping-Russell for her role in the creation of the Carolina Research Venture Fund, which will help University startup companies overcome funding gaps to help bring Carolina’s best-in-class research to real-world application.
The trustees first approved the concept for the fund in 2013. Since then, a committee of trustees, administrators and faculty has worked to develop a separate organizational structure through which Carolina can help fund promising new technologies. The fund will begin with $5 million, derived from investment earnings on non-state funds.
Shuping-Russell, a managing director at BlackRock, said the fund would help move ideas from University labs to the commercial marketplace.
“Many of our UNC startups are working on breakthrough ideas and solutions that could greatly benefit the public,” she said. “However, because private investment capital is not broadly available at this earliest stage, these ideas struggle to get translated into practice use.”
The fund was created to address this gap in funding.
“This fund will help unlock these young companies’ potential and get their products into the hands of businesses and consumers by providing early capital and leveraging our relationships with the national venture capital community,” Shuping-Russell said.
A board of directors made up of trustees, administrators, researchers and others will oversee the fund. The board will hire one or more independent managers to oversee the fund operations. It will also have an advisory board of leading venture capitalists from across the nation.
“As the Carolina Research Venture Fund proves its success, we will continue to invest in and energize its growth with additional capital,” Folt said.
UNC alumnus Lynn Roundtree and University Librarian Sarah Michalak present the Board of Trustees a 1785 edition of Clement Crutwell’s book, “The Works of the Right Reverend Father in God Thomas Wilson, D.D.” at a meeting of the Board of Trustees at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Adding a singular focus
Folt said commercializing University intellectual property and capitalizing on the nearly $800 million in research funding Carolina researchers brought in last year is one of the University’s highest priorities.
At Carolina, no one better exemplifies that frame of mind than Cone, Folt said.
“I am confident that Judith’s business background, experience in the region and entrepreneurial spirit will enable her to serve as a nexus for commercialization and economic development activities on the campus,” Folt said.
Since joining the University in 2009, Cone has been instrumental in strengthening a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship across campus by accelerating innovation programs already in place.
She has also helped Carolina forge regional partnerships, including a coalition with Duke, N.C. Central and N.C. State universities and the Council for Entrepreneurial Development to develop the Blackstone Entrepreneurs Network to assist next-generation growth companies.
Chancellor Carol L. Folt speaks with students following a meeting of the Board of Trustees at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Cone served on N.C. Gov. Pat McCrory’s Innovation-to-Jobs Working Group and helped supercharge the University’s innovation and commercialization by supporting those who translate their ideas.
In 2010, Caudill and Cone helped lead the Innovation Circle, a group of entrepreneurs and scientists enlisted to help Carolina increase its impact on the state and the world by figuring how to do a better job of translating new knowledge into real-world solutions. Cone also led the creation of the Innovate@Carolina: Important Ideas for a Better World roadmap, the University’s vision for using innovative ideas to solve pressing problems.
“I look forward to harnessing the talent, resources and potential that exists on this campus – which is truly unbounded – as we continue providing exceptional benefit to this community and to North Carolina,” Cone said.
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