CO-LABS report: $2.3B impact from fed lab funding on state economy

By: InnovatioNews Friday September 6, 2013 Tags: Bill Farland, Boulder, CO-Labs

BOULDER - A report from CO-LABS, the consortium organized in 2007 to establish Colorado as a global leader in research, technology and their commercialization, shows the economic impact of the state's 30 federally funded laboratories was $2.3 billion last year and employed nearly 8,000.

"Colorado's federal labs help foster the innovation that fuels our state and the nation's economy," said Gov. John Hickenlooper. "Leveraging the labs' research and technology with the state's innovative entrepreneurial spirit creates a strong foundation for Colorado's business ecosystem.

"We are proud of the extraordinary advancements coming from the research in Colorado and will continue to support our federal laboratories and their world-class workforce."

The report supports statistical data from national surveys on the importance of funding innovation in the U.S. Colorado is the first and only state to report on the combined economic impact of its federally funded laboratories.

"In 2008, when we first released our study, it was somewhat uncharted territory for a state to look at federally funded labs as a collective local resource," said Bill Farland, CO-LABS chair and Colorado State University's VP for research.

"What we found was more than a dollar value. We learned that there's a tremendous synergy between the laboratories, businesses and the community."

According to the Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer, Colorado ranks 4^th in number of laboratories and 7^th for federal laboratories per capita.

In addition, in 2009 Colorado ranked 2^nd in the nation for funding from NASA, the Department of Commerce and Department of Interior and was in the top five for National Science Foundation funding.

For more information or to download the report, visit http://co-labs.org.