RESEARCH NORTH CAROLINA.

DR. JOHN HARDIN

Executive Director

Office of Science, Technology & Innovation

June 3,2019

I am delighted to introduce this issue of Research North Carolina, a forum for sharing information from North Carolina institutions and companies about their research programs and achievements.

Research-based innovation is a force multiplier, providing a first-mover advantage in new products and services, expanding exports, and creating expansionary employment effects. It also helps power a virtuous cycle of expanding employment, which in turn leads to increased wages and lower prices, both of which expand domestic economic activity and create jobs.

In the words of Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Romer (1993), "No amount of savings and investment, no policy of macroeconomic fine-tuning, no set of tax and spending can generate sustained economic growth unless it is accompanied by the countless large and small discoveries that arc required to create more value from a fixed set of natural resources." For North Carolina, this means our ability to thrive in the increasingly dynamic, global economy depends, fundamentally, on how much wc infuse research and innovation throughout our economic system.

As shown in the North Carolina Board of Science, Technology & Innovation's most recent Tracking Innovation report, one of our state's strongest sources of research and innovation is its universities. North Carolina's academic R&D expenditures relative to the size of its economy now rank the third highest in the nation...