School officials have unveiled details of preliminary plans to construct a 30- to 40-acre research and technology park adjacent to the Kingston campus that could contain as many as six buildings and employ as many as 1,000 people...

...“Instead of chasing large smokestacks, a lot of tenants could very well be those startup companies that were created by faculty or at least where our faculty is heavily involved,” Alfonso said last week...

...Asked why URI is seeking to build a research and technology park, Weygand replied that “the university can no longer be funded in the way it used to be,” noting the state’s dwindling financial support of the school. “We need to look at different ways of operating, such as a relationship and a partnership with private industry"...

...“The research park should serve as a benefit to the faculty involved in the research as well as to the private sector,” Alfonso continued. “This is where we bring together the new technologies that come out of the university with the needs of the regional economic development folks. One of the best things we could do is creating more high-paying jobs, and this is a way to do that.”