Research Triangle Park

Research Triangle Park (RTP) is the largest research park in the United States.[1] It is located near Durham, Raleigh, and Chapel Hill, in the Research Triangle region of North Carolina. A small part of the Park stretches into Wake County, but the majority of the land is in Durham County.

It is one of the most prominent high-tech research and development centers in the United States and is often compared to Silicon Valley. It was created in 1959 by state and local governments, nearby universities, and local business interests. Karl Robbins bought the land where the park is now built. The Research Triangle along with the Cummings Research Park located in Huntsville, Alabama, and the Virginia BioTechnology Research Park in Richmond, three of the largest research parks in the country, have made the "New South" home to three global centers of scientific leadership.

The park is 7,000 acres (28 km²) situated in a pine forest with approximately 630 acres (2.5 km²) for development. As of 2007, there are over 130 R&D facilities existing in RTP with more than 39,000 employees working for a total of 157 organizations. The park is adjacent to Interstate 40 and the Durham Freeway. It is managed by the Research Triangle Foundation, a private non-profit organization.

The park is home to one of the largest IBM operations in the world; the company has around 11,000 employees in RTP. The park hosts one of GlaxoSmithKline's largest R&D centres with approximately 5,000 employees.

Companies and institutions in or near the Research Triangle Park

• BASF
• Bayer
• BE&K
• Becton Dickinson
• Bekaert
• Biogen Idec
• Böwe Bell & Howell
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
• ChannelAdvisor
• Cisco Systems
• Coleman Insights
• Credit Suisse
• Cree Inc.
• Diosynth
• DuPont
• DynCorp
• Eisai Co.
• EMC
• Environmental Protection Agency
• Ericsson
• Extreme Networks
• Freescale Semiconductor
• Fidelity Investments
• General Electric
• GlaxoSmithKline
• International Business Machines (IBM)
• Instrumentation, Systems, and Automation Society
• International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry
• Intersil
• Kendle International
• Lenovo
• Merck & Co.
• Monsanto
• Motricity
• National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
• National Humanities Center
• National Semiconductor
• Network Appliance
• Nortel Networks
• Nufarm
• Pharmaceutical Product Development
• Quintiles
• Red Hat
• Research Triangle Institute
• ReverbNation.com
• SAS Institute
• Semiconductor Research Corporation
• Sigma Xi
• Sony Ericsson
• Southern Capitol Ventures
• Spirent Communications
• Sumitomo
• Syngenta
• Tekelec
• Underwriters Laboratories
• United States Forest Service
• Verizon
• Wyeth

Universities

• Campbell University
• North Carolina Central University
• Duke University
• North Carolina State University
• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

External links

• Research Triangle Park Web site
• RTP-TV
• National Humanities Center
• TechJournal South
• The Council for Entrepreneurial Development
• Southeast VC
• Beecoz
• Research Triangle Regional Partnership

References

• Link, A.N. A Generosity of Spirit: The Early History of the Research Triangle Park. Research Triangle Park: The Research Triangle Foundation of North Carolina, 1995.
• Link, A.N. From Seed to Harvest: The Growth of the Research Triangle Park, Research Triangle Park: The Research Triangle Foundation of North Carolina, 2002.

35°54′29″N 78°51′46″W