Uni Lures Big Business With Technology Incubator Site
The Age
Tuesday September 15, 1998
LATROBE University hopes to have 1500 people working from its research and technology centre - R&D Park - at Bundoora by the end of next year.
Centre manager Ed Hilliard said tender documents on a $4.5million expansion of the Technology Enterprise Centre would be finalised soon.
The new buildings would include 2000 square metres of floorspace for new technology businesses and graduates from the incubation program.
It is hoped work on the site could begin as early as January next year.
The TEC hosts about 20 technology incubator companies working in fields such as earth science, seismology research, avionics, industrial control software, geographic information systems and multimedia software development.
Hilliard said the emphasis of the R&D Park was to bring specialist businesses into the university, rather than to commercialise internal research, a major focus of other technology and science parks.
The exception to this rule is the anchor tenant Qualitative Solutions and Research, which occupied the TEC building at LaTrobe before it had been developed to host an incubator scheme.
A further expansion of the LaTrobe R&D Park hinges on the State Government's plans for the neighboring former Mont Park hospital site.
The Government is still considering the future of a portion of the hospital land. About 450 people work on the park site now.
Hilliard said a new high-technology business culture and related services industry in Melbourne's northern suburbs was a major aim for the park.
Intellectual property and technology law firm Francis Abourizk Lightowlers has set up an office in the centre following a grant from the Victorian Strategic Industry Research Fund.
Hilliard said the SIRF grant was also used to site marketing and accounting practitioners at Bundoora on a part-time basis.
``This region is one of the most densely populated manufacturing areas of Australia but it's mostly in the low-technology industry," Hilliard said.
``This park has a central role to play to transform the industry in this area."
Park tenants also include Rio Tinto's research division and the State Forensic Science Laboratories.
The La Trobe R&D Park also hosts one of the largest concentration of library data in Victoria within the Caval Archival and Research Materials Centre. Caval, the Co-operative Action by Victorial Academic Libraries, was formed 20 years ago by Victoria's universities and the State Library of Victoria.
© 1998 The Age
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