New Research Center for Urban Entrepreneurship & Economic Development, the First of its Kind, is Launched at Rutgers Business School

Initiatives include partnership with equity-investment fund to jump start Newark businesses on the rise

With the launching of the business school’s Center for Urban Entrepreneurship & Economic Development, which will be officially inaugurated on October 7, they also have the tools to make that vision a reality.

The first of its kind in the nation, the center represents a major public-private partnership that will serve as a model for other urban communities. It is also among the programs that is helping Rutgers Business School to attract top faculty, such as Jeffrey A. Robinson, PhD, a sought-after expert and commentator on entrepreneurship and urban economic development, who joined the school’s faculty this semester.

The new center brings together city and state officials, big business, community agencies, entrepreneurs, and academics. With its flagship initiative in Newark, the center will incorporate resources from the main campuses of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. Among the center’s partners are the New Jersey Economic Development Authority, the Office of the Mayor of the City of Newark, the city’s Housing Authority, and the Newark-based Brick City Development Corporation.

Their shared goal: to transform the landscape of the state’s cities, to create wealth in urban communities, and to serve as a model for other urban universities in the nation – and, ultimately, the world.

The center’s first economic development initiative is a partnership with the new Profeta Urban Investment Foundation at Rutgers Business School, Inc., a private, not-for-profit equity-investment fund established by an initial $1-million contribution by Paul V. Profeta, president of the national real estate management firm bearing his name. The fund will provide seed capital along with debt from publicly interested lending institutions (such as BCDC, City National Bank, and PNC Bank) in order to launch new urban businesses and expand existing stage-one urban enterprises. The fund’s initial focus is on dining, entertainment, and retail businesses in the University Heights section of the City of Newark.

The Dean of Rutgers Business School, Dr. Michael R. Cooper, says, “Rutgers University, including Rutgers Business School, is a vital part of Newark. We are tremendously proud to contribute to the city’s revitalization. We are delighted that the Business School’s rebirth which includes the new Center for Urban Entrepreneurship & Economic Development, as well as a new state-of-the-art headquarters scheduled to open at 1 Washington Park in fall 2009 – coincides with Newark’s own renaissance.”

Leading the center is dt ogilvie, PhD (Note: lower case is correct), associate professor of business strategy at Rutgers Business School and the center’s founding director. ogilvie is regularly sought for comment by business media for her expertise in strategic decision-making, creativity, business innovation, and inner-city economic development. She has been involved in the Newark community and various economic development efforts since she joined Rutgers Business School in 1994, including the steering committee for OpportunityNewark, a program of the Newark Alliance, and as a member and treasurer of the Board of Directors of the Brick City Development Corporation (BCDC).

Robinson, the center’s assistant director and an assistant professor of management and global business, is the recipient of the Aspen Institute’s 2007 Faculty Pioneer Rising Star award, for his research, teaching and service activities at the intersection of business and society.  Among his areas of expertise are the intersection of wealth, race and new venture creation, and the role of social entrepreneurship and social venture incubators in economic development.

Support from the President’s Faculty Diversity Cluster Hiring Initiative at Rutgers University will enable Rutgers Business School to further augment its faculty in the area of urban entrepreneurship and economic development. 

University President Richard L. McCormick said, “We are enormously pleased to support the proposal of Rutgers Business School–Newark and New Brunswick, the School of Law–Newark, and the School of Public Affairs and Administration as the first cluster in the President’s Faculty Diversity Cluster Hiring Initiative.”

He added, “This cluster has the added appeal of addressing significant issues of wealth generation and job creation among minority and immigrant communities in the inner city, an issue of significance in New Jersey and also across the nation.”

The center’s research focuses on urban entrepreneurship (job creation, business development, community entrepreneurship); technology entrepreneurship (technology transfer, incubators, technology clusters, leveraging university patents, green business); social entrepreneurship (social problem-solving, social-purpose business, social investments); and international entrepreneurship (institutions and entrepreneurial activity, small and medium enterprises and developing nations, entrepreneurship towards economic development).

Dean Cooper said the new center dovetails with his goal of “delivering cutting-edge, multidisciplinary curricula that combine the mix of business, science, and technology skills required by today’s leading corporations.”

With this focus in mind, ogilvie and Robinson designed a graduate-level course, Special Topics in Urban Entrepreneurship I and II, in which MBA students will review projects for future funding, serving as a de facto due-diligence team. ogilvie explained, “The students will act as advisors, or business consultants, to the businesses funded by our venture fund.”Said Robinson, who teaches the course, “It’s a very hands-on approach, actually taking theory and knowledge from research and applying it.”  What sets the center apart from other programs in the United States, ogilvie said, is its emphasis on the urban environment, with its challenges of infrastructure, abandoned properties, and frequent loss of an educated work force.

For additional information about the Center for Urban Entrepreneurship & Economic Development at Rutgers Business School, visit www.business.rutgers.edu/cueed, or e-mail CUEED@business.rutgers.edu. 

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About Rutgers Business School-Newark and New Brunswick:

About Rutgers Business School-Newark and New Brunswick is an integral part of one of the nation’s oldest, largest, and most distinguished institutions of higher learning: Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. Founded in 1929, Rutgers Business School has been accredited since 1941 by AACSB International–the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business — a distinction that represents the hallmark of excellence in management education. Today, Rutgers Business School is educating more than 4,000 undergraduate and graduate students at two main campuses in New Jersey as well as six satellite locations in New Jersey, China, and Singapore. Steeped in academic excellence, with a distinguished faculty and a corps of over 27,000 successful alumni, it is recognized as one of the top three business schools in the greater New York metropolitan area; is ranked #10 nationwide for “Most Competitive Students” by The Princeton Review; and is part of the campus that is ranked #1 in diversity nationwide by U.S. News & World Report, for 12 straight years. For additional information, visit www.business.rutgers.edu.

Media Contact: Bridget Daley
973-353-5177
E-mail: bdaley@business.rutgers.edu