Research Funding Key to Economic Development
BYLINE: Kasey, Pam
ABSTRACT
Sponsors of the STaR Symposium include the Charleston Area Alliance, Fairmont State University, Marshall University, NASA IV & V Facility, NASA West Virginia Space Grant Consortium, National Science Foundation, West Liberty State College, West Virginia Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research, West Virginia High Technology Consortium Foundation, West Virginia Independent Colleges & Universities Inc., West Virginia University, West Virginia University Institute of Technology and West Virginia Wesleyan College.
FULL TEXT
MORGANTOWN - Universities receiving research funding budgeted by the state need flexibility in deciding how to use that funding.
That's the lesson shared by University of Louisville President James R. Ramsey Sept. 17 at the statewide Science, Technology and Research Symposium in Morgantown.
Ramsey appeared on a keynote panel on the subject of collaborative and competitive research with West Virginia University President Michael S. Garrison and Marshall University President Stephen J. Kopp.
On introducing the panel, Gov. Joe Manchin's Education Policy Adviser Jay Cole said every successful regional hightech development in America during the past 50 years has had a robust research university or network of universities at its core.
The panel, Cole said, was assembled to address the role research universities can play in stimulating economic growth.
U of L had almost no research program in the 1990s, according to Ramsey.
But because, in part, of Kentucky's widely recognized "Bucks for Brains" research funding program established in 1998, the university recently has been recognized as the fastest growing research university measured in National Institutes of Health funding.
Ramsey said through "Bucks for Brains," formally known as the Research Challenge Trust Fund, Kentucky has committed about $100 million to U of L in three installments, beginning with $33 million in 1998.
Conference participants noted West Virginia's research-andinnovation-based economic development plan, VISION 2015, is following about nine years behind. The program received its first $10 million allocated by the West Virginia Legislature July 1, primarily for hiring new research faculty at Marshall and West Virginia universities.
VISION 2015 calls for a total of $250 million throughout 10 years.
U of L has grown its research program, Ramsey said, by "placing bets" on a focused set of research priorities. They include specific areas in health care, entrepreneurial studies, engineering and education.
That strategy is also pursued in VISION 2015, which calls for identification, funding and creation of four nationally competitive research clusters by 2011.
Following Ramsey's presentation, Kopp noted the importance of steadiness and reliability in research funding, characteristics Ramsey has found are not always present in state-based funding.
The Marshall Institute for Interdisciplinary Research, Kopp said, will start out with an endowment and is designed to be self-sustaining, without the need for state funding that might fluctuate from year to year.
Fundraising for that endowment is under way now.
Garrison spoke about the August America COMPETES Act to improve America's science and technology competitiveness, calling it a bold step that "could go down in history as a watershed moment for our country and our public universities."
The act places before our universities and our state a great challenge, Garrison said.
"We must ask ourselves what part we will play," he said. "Will we be leaders?"
Cole asked the panelists if they see any event on the horizon that, like the 1957 launch of Sputnik, could galvanize the American research enterprise.
Garrison noted energy as an emerging issue of that level of importance.
The challenge today, according to Kopp, is, "which nation will be the primary determiner of what the future will be?"
National Science Foundation deputy director Kathie Olsen also addressed the assembly.
Olsen praised VISION 2015, noting its goals are well aligned with the American Competitiveness Initiative.
She encouraged researchers whose NSF proposals are rejected to resubmit.
"Every single person has been declined," she said.
Resubmitting applicants need to do three things, she said: read the reviews, call the program officer and address the review comments in the revised submission.
Sponsors of the STaR Symposium include the Charleston Area Alliance, Fairmont State University, Marshall University, NASA IV & V Facility, NASA West Virginia Space Grant Consortium, National Science Foundation, West Liberty State College, West Virginia Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research, West Virginia High Technology Consortium Foundation, West Virginia Independent Colleges & Universities Inc., West Virginia University, West Virginia University Institute of Technology and West Virginia Wesleyan College.