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Innovation called key to Buffalo revival
UB officials and Partners Day award recipients pose after the luncheon. From left: Robert Genco, David Hangauer, President Satish K. Tripathi, Lt. Gov. Robert Duffy, keynote speaker Bruce Katz, Amber Dixon, Joseph Gardella and Alex Cartwright. Photo: DOUGLAS LEVERE
Buffalo has the trappings of a city poised to reinvent itself as a successful 21st century economy, but needs to invest its resources wisely to achieve that goal, according to Brookings Institution Vice President Bruce Katz, who delivered the keynote speech at UB Partners Day on Wednesday.
Katz, founding director of the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program, has been advising Gov. Andrew Cuomo and regional leaders on the governor’s plan to invest $1 billion in economic development in Buffalo. In his talk, Katz envisioned a Buffalo of the future where innovation—including in advanced manufacturing—is central to the economy, where carbon emissions are low, and where trade with Canada is booming.
“I’m very, very bullish on Buffalo,” he told a room of about 430 listeners who had gathered at the Buffalo Niagara Convention Center for a Partners Day awards luncheon honoring UB’s vital community and industry partners.
The talk was a fitting conclusion to the university’s annual Partners Day event, which features workshops and an expo showcasing how UB is working with regional companies and organizations to improve life in Western New York. This year’s presenters discussed social entrepreneurship, revitalizing manufacturing and growing life sciences firms, among other topics.
Katz’s lunchtime address focused, in particular, on Cuomo’s $1 billion-for-Buffalo challenge, which Katz described as an investment in the region’s long-term prosperity. The money can be “the gift that keeps on giving—if you do it right,” he said.
In making his argument, Katz pointed to existing assets that can propel Western New York to success, including a solid base of research at UB and fellow institutions. Other bright spots: Buffalo recently logged the 16th-lowest per-capita carbon footprint of the nation’s 100 largest metropolitan region, and posted a relatively strong recovery during the recession.
To move forward, however, Western New York will need to improve in a number of areas, Katz said. The region needs to patent more discoveries, do a better job of educating workers to meet industry needs and build more strategic ties with Canada, he said.
He also criticized the region’s sprawl, arguing that dense, metropolitan environments cultivate the innovation that helps build thriving economies. Today, cities that occupy 12 percent of the land in America hold two-thirds of the population and generate three-fourths of the nation’s gross domestic product, according to statistics he presented.
Katz’s presentation relied on research about Western New York that Brookings conducted with the UB Regional Institute and Buffalo Niagara Enterprise.
In introducing Katz, President Satish K. Tripathi outlined the role that UB can play in transforming Buffalo. Other metropolitan areas have grown their economies by partnering research universities with high-tech businesses, particularly in the life sciences, Tripathi said.
“Our region has all the necessary elements to achieve this kind of synergy,” Tripathi said. “At UB, we have a number of collaborative ventures that are focused on harnessing the potential of these partnerships.”
Besides Katz’s speech, the UB Partners Day luncheon featured the presentation of the following awards:
- Vital Partner Award to Kaleida Health. Kaleida Health and UB have partnered for many years to improve medical research and care in Western New York. In May, the two organizations opened a $291 million building downtown that houses the new Gates Vascular Institute and Clinical and Translational Research Center. Kaleida Health physicians and UB researchers will share the 10-story space with the Jacobs Institute and UB Biosciences Incubator, delivering clinical care, studying the causes and treatments of an array of diseases, and spurring new biotechnology companies.
- University Community Partners Award to Joseph A. Gardella, John and Frances Larkin Professor of Chemistry at UB, and the Buffalo Public Schools. Gardella and the district head the Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Partnership (ISEP), a $10 million program funded largely by the National Science Foundation to encourage hands-on laboratory and field work in science classes. ISEP provides about 60 teachers a year with interdisciplinary, research-based, professional development opportunities, along with a network of supporters to staff activities in class and after school. Buffalo State College and the Buffalo Museum of Science are core ISEP partners.
- Faculty Entrepreneur Award to David G. Hangauer, UB associate professor of chemistry. Hangauer is co-founder of Kinex Pharmaceuticals, a specialty pharmaceutical company focused on the development and commercialization of next-generation therapies for cancer and immunomodulatory diseases. Hangauer developed a combinatorial synthetic chemistry technology that is critical to computer-aided drug design. The synthetic chemistry process and compounds generated from this process are patented and licensed by SUNY Research Foundation to Kinex Pharmaceuticals.
- Reaching Others Award to New York State Lt. Gov. Robert J. Duffy. Duffy chaired the Regional Economic Development Councils, designed to help develop regional strategic plans to spur new job creation and investment. In a letter to Cuomo and Duffy, the regional chairs wrote that success came from the unprecedented public participation; the independent, community-based process for ideas; and the opportunity for each region to determine its own priorities.
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