An Inside View into San Diego’s Innovation Engine

Credit: Erik Jepsen/UC San Diego

Situated at the heart of one of the world’s most dynamic innovation hubs, the University of California San Diego has played a defining role in shaping the regional ecosystem. Beyond educating the talent pipeline, the institution has built a deliberate strategy around industry partnerships, technology commercialization, and convening power — connecting industry, government, investors, and researchers into a highly integrated innovation network.

In this conversation with Dr. Paul Roben, Associate Vice Chancellor for Innovation and Commercialization at UC San Diego, we examine what makes the region unusually connected, how early spinouts such as Linkabit and Hybritech seeded entire industry verticals, and the strategic role of the university as a long-term engine of local and regional economic growth.

From biotechnology clustering and defense partnerships to space research and wildfire monitoring systems, Dr. Roben reflects on the institutional mindset required to translate research into real-world impact. He underscores that building an innovation ecosystem is not primarily about maximizing institutional revenue — it is about strengthening regional development, expanding opportunity, and sustaining competitiveness over time.

The GFCC will host a study trip with UC San Diego to unpack the structural drivers behind this growing ecosystem and to examine how the regional network is advancing breakthroughs in AI, deep tech, biotechnology, energy, and defense technologies. If you are interested in joining, please click here.

The study trip is part of the Leadership in Place-making Innovation, an initiative of the GFCC University and Research Leadership Forum to explore the dynamic intersection of university-driven ecosystems and strategic place-making.

Robotics research at UC San Diego. Credit: Erik Jepsen/UC San Diego

What differentiates the San Diego innovation ecosystem from other ecosystems around the globe?

San Diego is probably the most connected innovation ecosystem I've seen anywhere. Whether you're a graduate student just looking to make connections, or you're somebody looking for investment, it's very easy to meet the right people.

Was there an enabling infrastructure to facilitate this level of connection or was this something that emerged organically?

Two building blocks contributed to this. One is historically how the ecosystem grew. You can trace the life sciences and tech sector to a single company. The tech part came out of Linkabit, which became Qualcomm. The life sciences part came out of Hybritech, which was bought by Eli Lilly. When Elli Lilly bought Hybritech, a lot of people left the company and went off to start new businesses or to become investors. You had that close connection from the beginning that permeated all the way through. The other reason why the ecosystem is so well connected is because of the setup of specific organizations, such as: Biocom California, CONNECT, and Cleantech San Diego.

What role has the University of California San Diego played in shaping this ecosystem?

The university educates the people who become the workforce driving the life science and tech sectors in San Diego. Our faculty are also global leaders in developing technology and expertise in different areas that we license out into the industrial sector. The fact that UC San Diego produces highly skilled professionals and cutting-edge technology explains why there's probably about 500 biotech companies within five or six miles of the university. The other thing the university does, which all large universities do, is to convene the ecosystem. We are kind of a neutral convener. You wouldn't have the biotech sector here in San Diego without the university. All biotech companies are clustered around the campus. This is typical of many innovation ecosystems all across the world. Normally you have a large research university somewhere in the middle of it.

When you look for strategic partnerships using UC San Diego as an anchor in this innovation ecosystem, how do you choose your partners to build trust over time?

We'll always start first with an analysies of the capabilities available at the university. Do we have the expertise, the research portfolio, the students? Do we have capabilities in a particular sector or in a particular technology vertical? But beyond that, you have to look and map the strengths and capabilities of the region.

Is there a specific case that you would like to highlight?

San Diego has huge capability across various different aspects of research that are relevant to national security and aerospace. It has the highest concentration of military assets anywhere in the world, the largest number of veterans and different industry verticals with the primes and the neo-primes that are needed to develop programs taken up by the Department of Defense (DoD). We are the headquarters for the Navy in the Pacific. We have all of these building blocks. In other words, we look at where we have a critical mass of capabilities in both the region and the university. It's at that intersection that we convene. Then we bring the Pentagon together with the industrial leaders, government, and the university. We bring all the right people into the room to have those conversations.

What other partnerships are in place now that you could comment on?

We do hundreds of industry partnerships a year, bringing in a couple of hundred million dollars to the university. But more importantly, these partnerships bring expertise that we need. As an example, I could cite a large partnership that we have with Deerfield Management. They committed $65 million to bringing therapeutics through human clinical trials and starting spinning out businesses from the research. We also have many partnerships with space companies — Axiom Space, Space Tango, SpaceX — to develop therapeutics and organoids in space in low Earth orbit. We've sent up to 14 missions so far. The fundamental research in our university is only the first step. At some point that has to be translated to people who can actually bring these things to the market. And it doesn't always have to be industry. Another example is the partnership with fire departments across California, the ALERTCalifornia Wildfire Camera Program. We developed and run the wildfire alert system for the state with thousands of cameras. You must have these partnerships if the research you're doing is actually going to impact everybody in their daily lives. That's a big component of what we do.

What does your office do in particular?

My office has two main pieces to it. One is the commercialization piece, where we protect intellectual property and license it out to industry. That's mostly commercializing inventions that come out of the research portfolio. That's where we directly introduce companies to faculty when they tell us they've invented something. We also bring entrepreneurs-in-residence, innovators, attorneys, finance people, and others to meet with faculty and students so they can get the right feedback. Then we build companies around them. There are a lot of resources to actually get these companies off the ground and growing so they can raise the funding they need.

What is the most important step to consider when bringing research to market?

Engagement is the most important thing. You have to engage with the market in order to be sure that you are getting the right feedback and properly identifying whatever product it is that you're developing within the needs of the market. The worst thing to do is to develop something for which there is no need — and that happens a lot of the time. We try to create environments where our faculty and students are able to engage with people in the market who can give them feedback at many different levels.

Which lesson from UC San Diego’s journey could benefit other universities and regions that want to build innovation ecosystems around them?

The first thing to understand is that it's not about the money. This is not a way for universities to make a huge amount of money. As an example, we do a little bit less than $2 billion of research every year. We only bring in about $30 million from this type of commercialization activity. So it doesn't move the needle at all. If the university leadership views this strategy as a way to make money for the university, it's not going to work. You have to view this as a regional economic and social development activity — where you're helping to improve the quality of life for people in your region and beyond. That's what works. It's a vision and an engagement tool. It's creating environments, reducing barriers, getting rid of friction so that you have this free flow of ideas and people back and forth from the university. That's what this is all about.