Economic Development
Portland State Business Accelerator
The Portland State Business Accelerator is home to some of Oregon's most promising young companies in bioscience, clean tech, and information technology. It accelerates the success of these high-growth companies by providing resources, connections, expertise, University support, and control of high-impact costs, all within a growth-focused entrepreneurial community.
Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Portland State advances
the region's economic development agenda by:
- Supporting growing economic clusters with a skilled labor force and next-generation ideas and technology.
- Becoming a center where public- and private-sector partners collaborate on research efforts.
- Building Portland's global excellence in sustainability by advancing comprehensive approaches.
A collaboration between Research and Strategic Partnerships, the School of Business Administration, and the Maseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science, the new Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship will leverage and grow a range of existing and new activities across campus that contain high potential for new business ventures and serve as the university's central resource for entrepreneurship and innovation.
Innovation District
PSU is teaming-up with the City of Portland to establish the Educational Urban Renewal Area (URA), which will help PSU continue to accelerate the region’s growth and excellence, attract investment, and educate the region’s workforce. It is projected to provide $100 million for investment in affordable housing, educational facilities, and private taxable development, over a 25 year period. By leveraging public and private investment through residential, commercial, classroom, and research space within and surrounding the campus, the URA will help make PSU an increasingly attractive destination for talented students, faculty, and knowledge-based companies that want to be close to the source of innovation and ideas. Additionally, the investment that the URA will stimulate will nearly triple the size of the tax base from $608 million to $1.7 billion in 31 years.
Read about the Eductational URA (pdf)
Contributions to Regional Economies
PSU is working with the APLU Commission on Innovation, Competitiveness and Economic Prosperity (CICEP) to implement metrics for measuring university contributions to regional economies. The aim is to create a resource for universities to better measure and describe the broad range of contributions to regional innovation and economic growth.
Partnerships in Research and Innovation
Some of Oregon's best and brightest research centers and public-private partnerships are located on the PSU campus, providing greater opportunity for cross-disciplinary collaboration and innovation.
- Drive Oregon is a public-private partnership to catalyze the growth of Oregon's electric vehicle industry.
- Oregon Built Environment & Sustainable Technologies Center (BEST) connects Oregon businesses with university-based lab facilities and expertise to commercialize sustainable built environment and renewable energy research.
- Oregon Nanoscience & Microtechnologies Institute (ONAMI) accelerates research and commercialization of materials science, in part through their Center for Electron Microscopy and Nanofabrication at Portland State.
- Oregon Translational Research & Drug Development Institute (OTRADI) is dedicated to linking university researchers and biotech and pharmaceutical companies to fuel drug discovery and commercialization.
- Oregon Transportation Research & Education Consortium (OTREC) is a national University Transportation Center that supports innovations in sustainable transportation through advanced technology, integration of land use and transportation, and healthy communities.
