Nevada’s research institutions get boost from $9 million grant

Wednesday, June 1, 2005 | 11:06 a.m.

Nevada's research institutions are ramping up their work with a new $9 million National Science Foundation grant.

The Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) grant, paired with $4.5 million in matching money from the state general fund, will help provide new researchers, equipment and infrastructure for projects that will benefit UNLV, UNR and the Desert Research Institute, said Chris Chairsell, interim vice chancellor for academic and student affairs.

It is the third such grant for Nevada, and it gives the the state's institutions the "training wheels" they need to develop their own research infrastructure and compete for other federal funding, Chairsell, state director for the program, said.

Because it is funneled through the Nevada System of Higher Education, it also encourages researchers at all three institutions to share resources and expertise to develop programs that are nationally competitive, Dennis Lindle, Nevada EPSCoR project director, said.

"To be competitive with the Harvards and the Berkeleys and the Cal Techs, at least in certain areas, we need to bring all of our resources together," Lindle, a chemistry professor at UNLV, said. "We can't do that working as separate institutions."

Chairsell said she sees winning this particular grant as a coup for Nevada because the state was one of only four that did not have their proposed budget reduced by the National Science Foundation and the only state that did not have to fly to Washington, D.C., to defend its proposal.

The National Science Foundation created the EPSCoR program in 1979 as a sort of welfare program for states struggling to bring in research dollars, and Nevada has been part of the program since 1985.

Science Foundation data from 2001, the most recent available, ranked Nevada No. 44 in the country in research and development expenditures. All sectors combined, the state spent $444 million on research compared with the national average of about $5 billion per state. Neighboring California, which is No. 1 in the nation in terms of spending on research and development, spent $51 billion that year.

Nevada has received about $41 million to date in EPSCoR money from the Science Foundation, Chairsell said. The state also currently has about $73 million in EPSCoR grants from other federal agencies, including the National Institutes of Health, NASA, Environmental Protection Agency and the Defense and Energy departments.

Nevada has received about $3 back in federal funds for every $1 it invests, Chairsell said.

The grant money has made an "enormous impact on building the research infrastructure within the state and at each of the institutions involved," Paul Ferguson, vice president of research and graduate studies at UNLV, wrote in an e-mail.

"At UNLV, the grant has provided start-up research support for a number of faculty members, has attracted several highly regarded researchers, provided professional development opportunities, and brought national recognition to the institution," Ferguson continued. "... It provides support in the form of equipment and personnel that allows us to seek and receive additional research grants."

Many of the state's major research programs got off the ground thanks to EPSCoR money and are now self-sufficient, Chairsell and Lindle said, noting the bridge-engineering program at UNR or the Nevada Desert Free-Air CO2 Enrichment (FACE) a project of UNLV and DRI.

The bridge-engineering program developed a shake-table facility that allows researchers to test how bridges react during earthquakes. It is one of only three such facilities in the United States and has brought in more than $20 million in additional federal grant money to the state.

The FACE facility near the Nevada Test Site was built with both National Science Foundation and Department of Energy funding. Researchers there are studying the possible effects of global warming by subjecting plants to increased heat and carbon monoxide. The facility has brought in an additional $13 million in federal grants.

The new, three-year, $9 million grant will go to three main areas: the study of the environmental processes that affect Nevada's dry desert soil through a new facility on government land near Boulder City; the promotion of new sensor technology that can detect everything from mercury and lead to potential bio-terrorism threats; and the advancement of cognitive information processing, more commonly understood as computer artificial intelligence.

The grant money will help current researchers at all three institutions hire the faculty they need to fill any current gaps in expertise, buy the equipment they need and construct some new facilities, Chairsell and Lindle said. The money also funds several graduate students and programs aimed at promoting science and engineering among middle school students.

The goal is to "graduate" those programs from needing EPSCoR funding within three years, Lindle said. It will take many more years before the state as a whole is able to compete nationally without help from EPSCoR.

As outlined in the legislative report Assembly Bill 203, the state's eventual goal is to mimic what Georgia has done with the Georgia Research Alliance, Chairsell said. The private nonprofit alliance of state, university and business and industry investment has raised Georgia' research efforts tremendously over the last 15 years.

Together, the alliance has invested about $400 million into six of the state's universities, all with the goal of promoting further economic development in the area of science and technology. That investment has helped the state attract 50 eminent scholars, leverage an additional $2 billion in federal and private funding, create 5,000 new technology jobs and has brought 120 new technology companies to the state, according to the alliance's Web site.

"All of this is potential, but I think this potential is possible because we've matured as research institutions," Chairsell said. "And its all because of EPSCoR."

Fred Gibson Jr., retired president and chief executive officer of American Pacific Corp. in Henderson, is pushing Nevada lawmakers to set aside $4 million of the unclaimed property revenue for research-related initiatives. The request, included in Senate Bill 463, unanimously passed the Senate on Friday and would be used to purchase up to $50 million in bonds a year.

Those bonds would be purchased by the state Board of Financing and funneled to the state's institutions for endowments for research scholars, for equipment and new laboratories, Gibson said.

It's absolutely critical that Nevada invest in research if it wants to be a part of the "next generation of innovation and technology" and expand its economy beyond the service sector, said Gibson, current chairman of the Nevada Taxpayers Association, the Nevada Commission on Mineral Resources and former member of the Nevada Commission of Economic Development.

The impact of investing in research in Georgia has brought an additional $1 billion a year to the state's economy, primarily through the increase in high technology jobs, said Gibson, whose American Pacific has a research contract with Georgia Tech.

"The fact is is that if Nevada does not participate in that kind of acquisition of jobs in industry now they are going to be left behind," Gibson said.