Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery Town Center
The Town Center, located on the main floor of the Discovery building, welcomes visitors to Explore.Engage.Discover and fits with both the campus strategic plan and the technology transfer and business acceleration goals of WARF. It is a place to gather, share ideas, and celebrate science, creativity and exploration and offers reservable meeting spaces including the forum, teaching labs, reception spaces and conference rooms as well as engaging features such resource clinics, discovery niches and dining. The Town Center promotes chance encounters and numerous opportunities for engagement through dozens of programs and activities ranging from K-12 field trips to research symposia, entrepreneurship resources, artistic performances and more.
Outcomes
The Town Center welcomes >100,000 visitors each year from across campus, Madison, the state of Wisconsin and beyond to events, programs and tours. Each year, groups from across campus host hundreds of meetings and conferences in the Town Center. More than one hundred campus and community groups converge in the Town Center through programs supported by private foundations and corporate sponsorships that annually connect more than 30,000 K-12 students and their families to UW-Madison research. The Town Center is the hub of the award-winning Wisconsin Science Festival, which welcomes >30,000 participants from >15 states and dozens of Wisconsin communities to >200 events statewide with an estimated economic impact of >$500K.