The Research Triangle Region is blessed with unique and powerful assets for competing in today’s global economy. Among them, world-leading life science and technology clusters, major research universities, billions in annual research-and-development funding at our institutions of higher learning and federal and private labs, and a superior quality of life that enables our companies to attract and retain the talent they need to compete and grow.

 

At its heart is the world-renowned The Research Triangle Park™, created 50 years ago by visionary business and academic leaders, the engine that transformed the economic trajectory of our region.

 

In 2004, a new generation of visionary business and academic leaders again took bold steps to ensure the prosperity the region enjoys continues for decades to come. They launched an unprecedented and now-award-winning economic competitiveness plan, called Staying on Top: Winning the Job Wars of the Future. The plan rallied hundreds of organizations around a single vision and plan to create jobs and enhance the region’s competitive position.

 

The result: more than 100,000 new jobs created in the region during 2004-2009 and a strengthened and focused economic development infrastructure and leadership network that allows the region to identify and respond more quickly and effectively to economic challenges and opportunities as they arise.

 

The Shape of Things to Come™ leverages and build on that foundation with a new five-year plan to promote economic grwoth.

 

The same economic realities remain clear now as in 2004.  The world is engaged in an era of fierce, global competition for new jobs and investment. There will be regions of the world that win — where standards of living will rise and jobs will be plentiful — and regions that lose. The Research Triangle Region of North Carolina intends to win.

 

The experience with the first strategic plan demonstrates that the region can improve its chances of future economic success through innovation and action.

 

The new strategy takes the name of the the region's trademarked slogan to convey the vision regional leaders hold for our knowledge-based economy: to be “a world leader in intellectual capacity, education and innovation to enhance productivity and economic growth and achieve a superior quality of life for all our citizens.”