The Center for Business Acceleration and Incubation Studies (CBAIS) at the University of Michigan is committed to economic development and diversification through the establishment and promotion of business incubators.

Business incubators have been shown to be an effective job creation tool; they not only generate new places of work but also retain them in the community where they were created. Business incubators increase the survival rate of new businesses from an average of 20% to 80%. In addition, 84% of businesses that “graduate” from incubators remain in the same region ten years later.

CBAIS is one of the premiere organizations in the Midwest studying which types of small businesses have the best potential for growth in a specific region. The Center carries out market feasibility studies for proposed new incubators to determine whether a project has a solid market, a financial base, and strong community support. During the past several years, CBAIS has completed three such studies and has three new ones under way.

Ten years ago, CBAIS conducted a national incubator study for the Economic Development Administration (EDA) of the U.S. Department of Commerce that developed performance measures for different types of incubator programs and then analyzed the impact of incubator investments on local economies. CBAIS is presently conducting a second national study of incubation for EDA focused on best practices and their impact on performance of “graduating” companies (Incubating Success: Incubation Best Practices That Lead to Successful New Ventures).