AURP’s 2025 Economic Impact Report: The Power of North American Research Parks

AURP and Stiletto recently released a 2025 Economic Impact of North American Research Parks. This continues a series of reports commissioned by AURP to note the great impact research parks have in their communities. The full report is linked here.

Research parks and innovation districts remain the bridge between academic research and workforce development. Additionally, they support national development initiatives and are powerful engines of innovation, economic growth, and community vitality.

• Financial/ Employment metrics: 200 parks support about 2.5M jobs, contribute roughly $295B to annual GDP, and generate $33B in federal tax revenue. The 2025 survey shows the creation of ~696K jobs and highlighted 50+ organizations and 500+ workers per park. Additionally, Communities of Innovation perform better than corporate office parks, with vacancies of only 9% in 2025 (6% by 2030) as opposed to 13% (13-18% by 2030). This is largely due to R&D needs, mixed-use facilities, and assistance with commercialization.
• Start-ups: Compared to 49% nationwide, 75% of park-based start-ups survive thanks to incubators and start-up programming provided by 90% of research parks.
• Strategy Forecasts: By 2035, Stiletto projects 99M Sq Ft of development, $114 billion in net new annual GDP, 975K jobs, $61B in employment income, $13B in federal taxes, and $51B in household spending at full build-out. More than 50% of parks report shovel-ready projects, and about 1/4 have over 2M Sq Ft of development potential.

If you have questions about this report, please feel free to reach out to TUFF. All AURP publications can be accessed here.