Nevada receives record science grant

Jennifer Knight

Wednesday, April 17, 2002 | 9:12 a.m.

Nevada has been awarded a $9 million National Science Foundation grant -- the largest grant of its kind in the state, university system officials said Tuesday.

The grant will be supplemented by $4 million in state money to purchase state-of-the-art computers and lab facilities that will give all three of Nevada's research institutions a leg up in the competition for federal research money.

"The idea is for us to build centers in areas that we are known to be excellent in," said Jim Coleman, project director for Nevada's National Science Foundation Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) program. "Your hope it that it's a positive snowball."

The money will be spent creating or improving niches in three areas of science: environmental science, nanoscience (engineering things to be as small as a molecule) and the study of organisms in extreme environments such as the desert.

Nevada has already made headway in a number of those fields, but with improved lab facilities and equipment it can compete on a national level more easily, Coleman said.

A portion of the grant money is also earmarked to help increase diversity in the field of science, Coleman said.

Currently, Nevada receives about 0.2 percent of the nation's available NSF research money and 0.13 percent of the nation's available National Institutes of Health money. California receives the largest portion of NIH money at 13.3 percent.

States such as California have greater resources, said Lisa Zumpft, Nevada's EPSCoR deputy director. With additional grants like the one awarded by NSF, Nevada can build labs with more capabilities and obtain computers with more power. The state could also draw researchers who will help write competitive grants.

"Half the time if you are going up against California, people are going to say, 'Oh, yes we'll give it to them. California can do this,' " Zumpft said. "But if you don't have the money, it's hard to get the data and if you don't have the data, it's hard to get the money. It's a chicken-and-egg thing."