Research Triangle Park (RTP)
is the largest research park in the United States. It is located near Durham, Raleigh, and Chapel Hill, in the Research Triangle region of North Carolina. A small part of the Park stretches into Wake County, but the majority of the land is in Durham County.
It is one of the most prominent high-tech research and development centers in the United States and is often compared to Silicon Valley. It was created in 1959 by state and local governments, nearby universities, and local business interests. Karl Robbins bought the land where the park is now built. The Research Triangle along with the Cummings Research Park located in Huntsville, Alabama, and the Virginia BioTechnology Research Park in Richmond, three of the largest research parks in the country, have made the "New South" home to three global centers of scientific leadership.
The park is 7,000 acres (28 km²) situated in a pine forest with approximately 630 acres (2.5 km²) for development. As of 2007, there are over 130 R&D facilities existing in RTP with more than 39,000 employees working for a total of 157 organizations. The park is adjacent to Interstate 40 and the Durham Freeway. It is managed by the Research Triangle Foundation, a private non-profit organization.
The park is home to one of the largest IBM operations in the world; the company has around 11,000 employees in RTP. The park hosts one of GlaxoSmithKline's largest R&D centers with approximately 5,000 employees.
The Research Triangle, commonly referred to as "The Triangle", is a region in the Piedmont of North Carolina in the United States, anchored by the cities of Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill. The region comprises two Metropolitan Statistical areas, Raleigh-Cary, NC, and Durham, NC. It has an estimated total population of 1,635,974 as of July 1, 2007. The research universities of Duke University, North Carolina State University, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill are located in this region. The "Triangle" name was cemented in the public consciousness in the 1950s with the creation of Research Triangle Park, home to numerous high-tech companies and enterprises. Although the name is commonly used to refer to the cities, "The Triangle" originally referred to the universities, whose research facilities and the educated workforce they provide are the major attraction for businesses located in the Park. The Triangle's population is among the most educated in the United States, with one of the highest number of Ph.D.s per capita. The region should not be confused with "The Triad", which is the region directly west of the Triangle. Most of the Triangle is represented by, and closely associated with, the second, fourth and thirteenth congressional districts.
Companies and institutions in or near the Research Triangle Park
BASF
Bayer
BE&K
Becton Dickinson
Bekaert
Biogen Idec
Böwe Bell & Howell
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
ChannelAdvisor
Cisco Systems
Coleman Insights
Credit Suisse
Cree Inc.
Diosynth
DuPont
DynCorp
Eisai Co.
EMC
Environmental Protection Agency
Ericsson
Extreme Networks
Freescale Semiconductor
Fidelity Investments
General Electric
GlaxoSmithKline
Hatteras Networks
International Business Machines (IBM)
iContact
Instrumentation, Systems, and Automation Society
International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry
Intersil
Intersouth Ventures
Kendle International
Lenovo
Merck & Co.
Monsanto
Motricity
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
National Humanities Center
National Semiconductor
NetApp
Nortel Networks
Nufarm
Ogilvy
Pharmaceutical Product Development
Quintiles
Red Hat
Research Triangle Institute
ReverbNation.com
S&R Communications Group
SAS Institute
Semiconductor Research Corporation
Sigma Xi
Sony Ericsson
Southern Capitol Ventures
Spirent Communications
Sumitomo
Syngenta
Tekelec
Underwriters Laboratories
United States Forest Service
Verizon
Wyeth
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