Understanding Opportunity: New Haven’s Play for Neurosciences

When Yale New Haven Hospital announced its plans for a $838 million neuroscience center in Spring 2019, leaders in New Haven began to think about what an investment of this kind would mean for city.  The proposed center will be developed at the current St. Raphael campus with the addition of 505,000 square feet including 204 in-patient beds.   It will focus on the research and treatment of diseases like Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, and stroke.

The City hired NP to help local partners better understand what opportunities could become possible based on national neuroscience trends, New Haven’s existing strengths, and an examination of local workforce and land use issues that could contribute and/or hinder neuroscience industry growth.  Building on NP’s 2016 Life Sciences analysis for the City along with more recent work on Innovation Places, NP examined the current state of neurosciences in New Haven and the economic development implications for city.  

The findings included:

• Neuroscience is a field that extends beyond neurological disease but also has important linkages to emerging industries such as artificial intelligence, behavioral sciences, and consumer marketing;
• New Haven is a global and national leader in neuroscience research, e.g., Yale has more neuroscience research activity than 37 states in the US;
• The city is home to 12 companies developing neuroscience products and 7 major academic and clinical research programs that extend beyond Yale; and
• Maintaining leadership and taking advantage of the opportunities provided by New Haven and Yale’s leadership position in neurosciences requires providing the right types of infrastructure, and creating distribution channels for the knowledge and insights that exist in the various research groups across the city into Connecticut’s businesses.

​The City intends to use the study’s findings to inform a marketing and development program to grow the neuroscience industry in New Haven.