Study favors funding for ECU

Payoff may be jobs in five counties

More state investment in research at East Carolina University could pay off in biotech jobs in five nearby counties, a new study suggests.

ECU is a dormant regional economic development engine that could hum if the state established a research institute at the university and boosted funding to help recruit researchers, says a study commissioned by a regional development partnership.

The region, made up of Edgecombe, Nash, Pitt, Wayne and Wilson counties, has a higher unemployment rate than the state and few biotechnology companies. But it is within driving distance of Research Triangle Park, and it has three four-year colleges in addition to ECU as well as available land and access to Interstate 95.

"The region has tremendous potential," said Mark D. Dibner, president of BioAbility of RTP, which conducted the $112,000 study, funded by the N.C. Biotechnology Center and the N.C. Eastern Region, a partnership formed in 2006.

Findings of the study, to be released today, will underpin the region's efforts to double its number of biotech jobs to 10,000 in five years.

Some of its recommendations:

FOCUS ON RESEARCH. Just as the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Duke University and N.C. State University fuel the economy of the Triangle -- where about 300 biotech companies employ about 27, 500 people -- ECU could invigorate economic development in the five-county region.

"ECU's ability to become a significant research university and build a research-based medical school has been hampered in the past by decisions by the state and the ... [UNC system] that had the effect of inhibiting research activity," the study says.

Insufficient laboratory space, research faculty positions and state funding have limited the amount of research that ECU has been able to attract, it says. The $38 million that the university received in 2006 compares with UNC-CH's $593.4 million and Duke University's $683.4 million that year.

RECRUIT AS A REGION. To attract companies from other areas, the five counties should establish a Web site to market the region to companies that make drugs or medical devices, manage research and manufacture life-science products, the study says.

The counties should also identify sites where new companies could move, it said.

LURE ENTREPRENEURS. The region is home to three four-year colleges, as well as ECU, but they produce few graduates with degrees in biological sciences.

To attract entrepreneurs, the region should aggressively recruit ECU graduates who left the area and entrepreneurs from the nearby RTP area, it said.

(News researcher Lamara Williams contributed to this story.)