By Kristen Poland
Staff Writer

Today, the Palmetto State’s three senior research institutions—the Medical University of South Carolina, Clemson University and the University of South Carolina—are making huge strides in research and development and each has lofty goals to one day rank among the nation’s top universities. All three schools tout impressive recent research-related accomplishments, and their efforts are bolstered by statewide and federal initiatives to support research activity. 

“As a state, we’ve decided to make an investment in intellectual capital, and we’ve increased activity and our concept of innovation,” said Stephen Lanier, vice provost for research at MUSC. “We’ve developed a sort of culture that allows these things to occur—they’re popping up like cypress knees.”

Gail Morrison, director of academic affairs and licensing at the State Commission on Higher Education, said South Carolina is playing catch-up to other schools in the region because it got a late start in the realm of research.

“We don’t have any first-tier institutions at this point because ours are relatively newcomers,” Morrison said. “They didn’t really get significantly into the business of graduate education until after World War II and didn’t come into the research mission with any kind of intensity until this last decade.”

Christian Przirembel, vice president for research and economic development at Clemson, said in the past, South Carolina focused on attracting manufacturing companies—specifically textiles—to the state. Then, as more and more manufacturing operations began to relocate offshore, state leaders realized the need to invest in innovation as a way to retain existing manufacturers and bring new industry to the state.

“It became clear that in order to retain manufacturers we had to figure out how we can work with companies so they can continue to innovate with existing products or invent new products,” Przirembel said. “Those improvements in general will come from research and development work. Universities can play a key role, as long as we work with the public sector. We can’t operate in a vacuum.”

National Science Foundation statistics show how far South Carolina lags behind neighboring states in academic research and development. John Warner, president of Swamp Fox LLC and writes Swamp Fox: News of the Southeastern Innovation Community (www.swampfox.ws), analyzed spending numbers for universities in the Southeastern Innovation Corridor, including Alabama, Georgia, North and South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. Out of 16 regional universities, MUSC, Clemson and USC rank 11th, 12th and 14th, respectively. 

In the 2005 fiscal year, North Carolina schools spent nearly $1.6 million, more than three times the $474,048 South Carolina spent on research, and Georgia schools invested more than double with almost $1.2 million. Duke alone spent $630,752 and UNC-Chapel Hill spent $441,033.

While the Palmetto State did spend more than Alabama’s $450,739, Virginia’s $289,994 and Tennessee’s $255,699, Alabama has only two research schools and Virginia and Tennessee have just one. In addition, each of the schools in those three states—with the exception of Auburn University, which ranks 13th—individually outrank all three of the South Carolina schools. Only the Medical College of Georgia and Georgia State rank below all three South Carolina universities. 

The heads of research at all three South Carolina schools say the National Science Foundation numbers are deceiving because they do not take into account research awards received by schools, nor do they calculate the expenditures of research in non-science and engineering fields. In addition, these numbers are based on total amount of dollars actually spent during the fiscal year, not funds budgeted for future projects during that year.

“The Moore School of Business (at USC), internationally recognized for its IMBA program, does a tremendous amount of scientific research activity to advance South Carolina economics and is vital to South Carolina and widely recognized nationally for quality of research,” said Harris Pastides, vice president for research and health sciences at USC. “Fields like that are where USC really shines, but that isn’t calculated by the NSF. While the NSF report of expenditure is a very relevant metric, it’s only one piece of the broader research pie.”

Lanier noted that the NSF data doesn’t take into account the difference between state and private schools or between comprehensive universities, such as Duke or USC, and independent academic medical centers such as MUSC. MUSC ranks 49 out of 123 nationally among all medical schools in terms of National Institutes of Health funding for 2006, but in terms of free standing medical universities, MUSC ranks an impressive fifth out of 30 in NIH funding for 2006.

Still, all three universities acknowledge that South Carolina has a long way to go before it can consider itself a national competitor in the research front.

“Looking at states like North Carolina or Virginia, where there are certainly universities that are competing nationally, like UNC-Chapel Hill or Virginia Tech, and you can see how important those universities are to their states’ economies and reputation of those states in recruiting businesses,” Pastides said. “We do all that, too, but we want to do it on a higher and better level. Decades ago those states decided they wanted nationally prominent universities, and they invested in them."