UC IRVINE: THE SUCCESS OF ONE CAMPUS OF A FAMOUS UNIVERSITY BRINGS ABOUT A HIGH TECH CITY

Economic Information Daily, June 22, 2002
 

The rise of Silicon Valley has become a well-known success story in the development of the State of California on the west coast of the United States in the modem era. However, it is not the only success story for California. When Silicon Valley first started to take shape in Northern California during the 1970's, the newest campus in the University of California system also took its first steps in Irvine in the coastal area of Southern California. Today, Irvine, led by this school, has become one of the wealthiest areas in the United States and one of the centers of biotech industry in Southern California.

The City of Irvine, with a mere 31 years of history and a population of 130,000, is new home to mere than 10,000 companies, including large R&D and distribution centers of corporate giants such as AT&T, Canon and Volvo, as well as branches of all the major financial groups. What's more notable is the convergence in Irvine of many medical equipment developers, biotech companies and bio-pharmaceutical businesses.

With Irvine's growth from a patch of wilderness to a bioscience city of considerable size, a miracle of local economic development has come into being. The path of success taken by Irvine is a typical case of the development model in the United States where one campus of a famous university led the emergence of a whole area.

Universities in the United States, especially state universities, often have multiple campuses located in different areas of a state. The University of California has 10 campuses, including Berkeley, Los Angles and San Diego. In the words of Clark Kerr, former UC President, UC Irvine is one of two academic rockets launched in the United States after the end of World War II. Within the span of 30 years, UC Irvine has come to boast mere than 20,000 students, ranking 10th among all colleges in the United States, and has joined the ranks of top research universities in the country. In 1995, two professors at UC Irvine won Nobel Prizes in Chemistry and Physics, respectively, making the school the first public college in the U.S. to have two Nobel laureates in the same year. Today, UC Irvine is the third largest institution in Orange County and exerts an influence on the local economy amounting to mere than $2.35 billion dollars per year.

When the University of California first came to Irvine, the place was not called "the City of Irvine", since it was only a farm in Orange County. The main reason Irvine was chosen by UC as the site for a new campus was the nominal price of $1 charged by The Irvine Company for the land. Developers anticipated much mere gain for Irvine from the presence of a famous college than any fees for transferring the land. Indeed, the presence of UC Irvine immediately transformed a little known stretch of barren farm to a huge campus attracting many talented people.

UC Irvine's first-class research prowess in such areas as the life, information and computer sciences as well as physics not only won large sums of federal grants, but also attracted a constant stream of high quality individuals from elsewhere. In addition, the school combined the capabilities of its various departments such as life sciences, computer science, engineering, physics and chemistry to establish the first genetics and bioinformatics institute in a U.S. college, providing basic research for the development of genetic drugs. Given the strength of UC Irvine in life science research, it is little wonder that Irvine has emerged as a city of biotechnology. Most life science companies in Irvine are somehow connected with the school, or were founded by former researchers at the school, or use technologies from the school.

The take-off of the City of Irvine requires the presence of UC Irvine, but the rapid growth of Irvine is also related to the fact that the development of the local economy revolved around the school. During the same time as UC Irvine grew, Irvine Corporation, a far-sighted real estate developer, built industrial and research parks, attracting venture companies to start their business in Irvine and big corporations to set up branches there.

Americans are adept at utilizing universities as a source of knowledge and good at leveraging a campus of a university to transform a nameless place into an economic dynamo. Irvine is a case in point: a few decades after UC Irvine set its roots in Irvine, a new high tech city is born. Now, the University of California has decided to establish its 11th campus in Merced in the valleys of Northern California in an effort to meet the growing demand for education brought about by the rapid growth of population in the region. It is also an attempt to jump start the local economy. Merced is likely to become another economic miracle brought about by the presence of a university campus.

UC Irvine web site: www.uci.edu