10:36 a.m., April 16, 2009----BusinessWeek has selected the best cities for business start-ups in each of the 50 states, with Newark named the best in Delaware, in part because of proximity to the knowledge-based resources of the University of Delaware.

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The magazine notes that Newark has 2.97 business start-ups per 1,000 people and 32 small businesses per 1,000 people.

In a section on what to know about starting a business in Newark, Michael Phelan, president and chief executive officer of the SevOne network and application performance management firm, says: "Newark has been a great place to start because of its proximity to the University [of Delaware]. We have access to the best and brightest minds. We're able to pick through them and add them to our team. If we were in Silicon Valley, the top guy would have 50 other options. We're close enough to Philadelphia that we have access to the venture capital there."

The recent BusinessWeek story notes that in a down economy, many entrepreneurs are looking to small and midsize cities for a variety of reasons, including inexpensive office and laboratory space, proximity to universities and quality of life.

In selecting the 50 cities, a survey was conducted for BusinessWeek by GIS Planning of San Francisco. The survey looked at 11 factors to gauge a city's “entrepreneurial climate,” and those included the number of small businesses and start-ups, quality of workforce, the presence of institutions of higher education and measures of innovation, such as the number of patents issued.

The University of Delaware is committed to strengthening its participation in the economic development of the state and region and last year President Patrick Harker announced the creation of a new UD Office of Economic Innovation and Partnership, which serves as the Delaware gateway between entrepreneurs and the University's knowledge-based assets.

The office is headed by David Weir, the founding director of the Delaware Biotechnology Institute. For more information on the office, see the Web site.