Are science jobs about to go the way manufacturing jobs have gone for years, which is to countries with lower labor costs?

It's a question that more than 700 economic developers, economists, scientists, investors and business executives from around the world will explore at the three-day International Association of Science Parks conference that starts June 1 at the Raleigh Convention Center.

The IASP, which counts Research Triangle Park among its 350 members, will for the first time in its 25-year history hold its annual conference in the U.S., near RTP, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year and is the second oldest research park in the world.

Aside from anniversaries of Triangle organizations that have mined the massive research activities in the area to create well-paying jobs - the N.C. Biotechnology Center and the Council for Entrepreneurial Development turn 25 this year - the location for the IASP conference also reflects the effects information technology is having on research and development in the U.S.: E-mail, video teleconferencing and the Internet are allowing for greater flexibility of where scientists work.

That's great for science. But it poses a challenge for U.S. science clusters like RTP, one of the largest research parks in the world, and areas surrounding them.

North Carolina has seven research parks and about 4 million people employed in research and development statewide, including about 700,000 in the Triangle, according to labor market statistics. The state has also made it a priority to recruit biotech and pharmaceutical manufacturing jobs on the back of the existing R&D activities.

So what can research parks like RTP do to help keep existing science jobs and attract new ones? What role should research parks play in turning science into jobs in the next 50 years? And where is science going? Which innovations will change the lives of our children and grandchildren?

Many speakers at the conference will address those questions and offer answers, or at least projections. Here is a handful of some of the most influential and well known of the speakers:

• Andrew Witty, chief executive of GlaxoSmithKline, a British drugmaker that has its U.S. headquarters in RTP and has been cutting jobs for about 18 months.
• Anthony Townsend, research director of the Institute for the Future in Palo Alto, Calif.
• Ross DeVol, director of regional economics at the Milken Institute in Santa Monica, Calif.
• Shirley Ann Jackson, president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York.
• Gene DePrez, a corporate location consultant and former IBM executive.

To follow the discussion and contribute to the debate, turn to Science in the Triangle, which will bring you updates in real time on the Web and on Twitter.