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Wednesday, 19 December 2007 |
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Page 2 of 3
Seed money
As state lawmakers began to realize that funding academic research meant funding the future of South Carolina, a handful of initiatives were cultivated to provide money to the universities to attract preeminent professors to the state, purchase equipment, hire faculty and staff and construct new research space on the three campuses.
One such initiative is the South Carolina Centers of Economic Excellence Act passed in 2002. The act appropriated $200 million from the S.C. Education Lottery through 2010 to establish specialized centers at the state’s three research universities. So far, $149 million has been approved by the CoEE review board and $89 million has been matched by non-state sources. The majority of that money goes toward salaries of world-class scientists (endowed chairs) recruited to lead the centers. Other funds are used to purchase specialized equipment, laboratory construction, faculty and research assistants.
“We’ve been able to recruit outside scientists to our area that we wouldn’t otherwise have been able to attract,” said Steven Lainer of MUSC. “The bottom line of any successful research entity is its intellectual capital. It doesn’t matter how much space or how many research facilities they have—it’s the intellectual capital that makes a difference.”
Kenneth Reifsnider was recruited last summer as director of the University of South Carolina’s Solid Oxide Fuel Program and professor of mechanical engineering and as an Educational Foundation University Professor.
“We wouldn’t have had a prayer of recruiting him to South Carolina without the endowed chair program,” said Pastides. “He’s the only professor in the state who is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, which means he’s the cream of the crop.”
Reifsnider will work with existing fuel cell companies within the state on research projects and also will help recruit new fuel cell companies to South Carolina. If all goes as planned, the existing and new companies will fund more research projects and help hire more faculty in the fuel cell program.
“Before you know it, South Carolina could become home to the country’s hydrogen economy,” Pastides said. “It’s a long way off, but it could happen.”
The S.C. Research University Infrastructure Act (Life Sciences Act), another state research initiative, was passed in 2004. The act appropriated more than $220 million in bonds from S.C. Education Lottery revenue to be issued to the state’s three research institutions for new research space and other research-related infrastructure. The funds are awarded with an expectation that they will be matched by non-state money or in-kind contributions.
According to the most recent data, about $215 million has been issued with about $73 million each going to MUSC and USC and $69 million to Clemson. A total of about $159 million in matching funds have been secured by the three universities.
Some of the larger projects include a 125,000-square-foot wet/dry lab research building used to support USC’s Nanotechnology Research Program, a 110,000-square-foot biomedical/wet lab research building used by USC’s endowed chairs program and a 100,000-square-foot drug discovery and development building at MUSC.
At Clemson, most of the money received through the Life Sciences Act has gone toward the construction of four buildings, parking and other infrastructure for the 250-acre Clemson University International Center for Automotive Research (CU-ICAR), as well as about $29 million toward Clemson’s North Charleston Restoration Research Institute.
South Carolina’s research universities also are eligible for more federal funding than in the past because of the state’s participation in the federal Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research. EPSCoR has about $104 million invested in South Carolina research projects.
“EPSCoR is designed to help smaller states compete successfully with those states that get the lion’s share of federal funding,” Morrison said. “Our drawing down of federal research money is still less than what it would be desirable to be, but I think we’re showing some strong improvement.”
Joining forces
The state’s three research universities are cultivating partnerships with each other, with other schools in the state and with business and industry. North Carolina touts the Research Triangle Park, which is an alliance among Duke, UNC-Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University, the surrounding industries and governments. Research Triangle Park was developed in 1959 and since then has fostered relationships between public and private sectors in an effort to advance the state in both education and business. In recent years, South Carolina leaders have noticed the benefits of this type of collaboration and have worked to form similar types of relationships among the state’s universities, government and industries.
“Each university has strengths that complement each other,” MUSC’s Steven Lanier said. “By interacting together, the idea is that there is a synergy there that can be achieved that otherwise wouldn’t be there.”
Each university’s area of expertise varies. MUSC specializes in neuroscience, cancer research, vascular disease, health care quality and finance. USC is known for its work with future fuels (hydrogen, solid oxide fuel cell research), biomedical sciences and nanotechnology, and Clemson focuses on automotive engineering, architectural science and materials development.
“Clearly, each of us has a certain expertise, so collaboration is a more optimal use of state funds,” Clemson’s Przirembel said. “You place endowed chairs at all three schools in different areas to complement each other. If you look at all three institutions and combine our research funding, the three of us together can compete against Johns Hopkins or UNC-Chapel Hill. One on one, it wouldn’t be possible but combined, I think we can put a research team together that can compete.”
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