Entrepreneurial Terroir - The Ann Arbor Area of Innovation Appellation

The conference themes, Cooperating with Knowledge Creators and Impacting Society have particular meaning for the minority of us participating in IASP and the Doha conference that engage in our work through Areas of Innovation. Many colleagues involved in creating and managing science parks want to find ways to use their latent capacity to influence their surroundings, in effect creating areas of innovation. Those of us who come to the conversation from as areas of innovation may be able to provide some insight as to how STPs can achieve that wider impact. I intend to borrow the agricultural and viticulture concept of terroir to describe the experience of the Ann Arbor region of the State of Michigan (USA) to illustrate how in a relatively short period of time, an area of innovation can arise and become recognizable and actually build on itself creating ever greater and greater impact.