From the University of Maryland Newsdesk.

COLLEGE PARK, Md. — Brian Darmody, associate vice president of research and economic development at the University of Maryland, has been elected President of the Association of University Research Parks Board of Directors.

The Association of University Research Parks (AURP) is a professional association of university related research and science parks. Its mission is to foster innovation, commercialization and economic growth.

“The AURP supports creating communities of innovation,” said Darmody, noting that a recent Battelle report cited university research parks as strong sources of entrepreneurship, talent and economic competitiveness. At the University of Maryland Research Park, and increasingly throughout the U.S and around the world, governments, businesses and academia are looking for ways to increase research, spur technology connections, and create jobs.

“Research parks are prime locations to make this connection, situated at the intersection of real and intellectual property. The University of Maryland’s location adjacent to the seat of the U.S. government, in the presence of many federal laboratories, and near many embassies provides additional international partnership and commercialization opportunities,” noted Darmody, who cited the new Maryland International Incubator in College Park as another tool being used to localize innovation in Maryland.

University of Maryland projects led by Darmody include organizing the university’s first technology transfer office, authoring reforms to the State’s ethics legislation for entrepreneurial start ups, developing legislation creating the Maryland Technology Development Corporation (TEDCO), initiating Research Parks Maryland (RPM), the nation’s first statewide research park organization, and serving as Director of the University of Maryland Center for Applied Policy Studies (UMCAPS). He is the principal author of Power of Place, a national policy document focused on technology-led economic development and serves as co-principal investigator on the $3.5 million Proof of Concept Alliances, a Department of Defense funded commercialization project, and has served as a reviewer to the National Science Foundation and the National Academy of Science.

Darmody previously served as a staff member for the U.S. House of Representatives, the Maryland General Assembly in Annapolis, Maryland, and in the Office of the Attorney-Advisor, U.S. Health Care Financing Administration. Darmody, who also is a special assistant vice chancellor for technology development with the University System of Maryland, focuses on improving technology commercialization across the University System of Maryland and representing higher education regarding BRAC (Base Realignment and Closure Commission) recommendations affecting federal facilities in the region.

He serves on local and national boards, including the Maryland Space Business Roundtable, Greater Baltimore Technology Council, the Maryland Technology Council Legislative Committee, and the University of Maryland’s Network of Entrepreneurs. He holds a Juris Doctor from the University of Baltimore and an undergraduate degree from the University of Maryland, College Park.

About Maryland’s M Square Research Park

M Square, the University of Maryland Research Park, is the state’s largest research park. It offers flexible space locations from incubator space for start-up companies to build to suit options for larger technology clients in Maryland’s largest research park. Key technology clusters at the park include: environmental and earth sciences with a particular emphasis on climate and weather research and prediction (the NOAA National Weather and Environmental Prediction Centers), homeland and national security (the DOD-funded Center for Advanced Study of Language and the National Foreign Language Center); and food safety and food security (the FDA Center for Food Safety, Maryland Center for Food, Nutrition, and Agricultural Policy and the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service).

M Square is adjacent to the University of Maryland and located just 8 miles from the Nation’s Capital. Ranked among the nation’s top 20 public research universities, the University of Maryland brought in more 500 million in sponsored research funding, with federal funding and partnerships particularly strong in the areas of climate change, national security and food safety that are reflected the research park’s technology clusters.

M Square is a joint venture with the University of Maryland and regional real estate powerhouses, Manekin, LLC and Corporate Office Properties Trust (COPT).