CSE professors among those receiving U's research investment funding
Contacts:
John Merritt, Office of the Vice President for Research, merri205@umn.edu, (612) 624-2609
Preston Smith, University News Service, smith@umn.edu, (612) 625-0552
Funding for initiative derived from technology commercialization revenue
MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (06/16/2011) —Vice President for Research Tim Mulcahy announced today that more than $12 million in funds derived from the university’s share of technology commercialization royalties will be invested to enhance key infrastructure in support of research and scholarship at the University of Minnesota. This one-time funding follows recent investments of an additional $15 million, bringing the university’s total investment of technology commercialization royalties in critical infrastructure needs to $27 million over the past 18 months. Eighteen College of Science and Engineering researchers are among those receiving funding this time.
The most recent round of awards caps a two-year initiative conducted by the Office of the Vice President for Research (OVPR) in collaboration with the university’s academic leadership to identify infrastructure needs deemed critical to the university's continued competitiveness.
For this latest round of investments, OVPR managed a competitive peer-reviewed application process that included reviewers from inside and outside the university. The awards made through the program will provide funds for infrastructure ranging from imaging instrumentation, multimedia facilities and sophisticated data analysis equipment to performance space for the arts. A full list of the projects selected for funding, along with a brief description of each, is available on the OVPR website.
College of Science and Engineering researchers who are part of the teams receiving funding are:
John Bischof, Mechanical Engineering
Steven Campbell, Electrical and Computer Engineering
Paul Crowell, Physics and Astronomy
Tianhong Cui, Mechanical Engineering
Allen Goldman, Physics and Astronomy
Bin He, Biomedical Engineering
Emi Ito, Earth Sciences
Uwe Kortshagen, Mechanical Engineering
Christopher Leighton, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Mo Li, Electrical and Computer Engineering
Hubert Lim, Biomedical Engineering
K. Andre Mkhoyan, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Joachim Mueller, Physics and Astronomy
R. Lee Penn, Chemistry
Stergios Roumeliotis, Computer Science and Engineering
Martin Saar, Earth Sciences
Shashi Shekhar, Computer Science and Engineering
Donna Whitney, Earth Sciences
Background
Nearly six years ago, President Robert Bruininks and Mulcahy decided to place a portion of the technology commercialization royalties into a contingency fund to provide options for responding to opportunities, or to provide a critical lifeline in tough budgetary times.
“These strategic one-time investments will support the work of faculty in a broad range of academic disciplines across the Twin Cities and Duluth campuses,” Bruininks said. “Even in the face of severe budget challenges, we remain committed to leveraging precious resources in support of the long-term vitality of the university so that it can continue its pivotal role in the state of Minnesota.”
The latest round of funding was awarded to faculty in the College of Liberal Arts, College of Science and Engineering, College of Pharmacy, Medical School and the University of Minnesota -- Duluth. A number of funded proposals also included faculty from other colleges, including the College of Biological Sciences and the College of Education and Human Development. Colleges were also required to provide a one-third match for funded proposals.
“This funding will help support high-end research and scholarly needs that will benefit the entire university community, including the arts and humanities,” Mulcahy said. “The budget challenges confronted by the university over the past several years have limited investments in critical infrastructure, so we decided now was the time to deploy these funds to address some of our greatest needs. These investments will provide fiscally stable infrastructure that will have a long-term impact for the entire university, and our only regret is that we lacked sufficient funds to respond to all of the legitimate needs across our campuses.”
Over the past five years royalties from the commercialization of university technology have also provided support for a number of other critical initiatives, including:
- $50 million to create the “21st Century Fund,” an endowment designed to support graduate fellowships;
- $7 million to purchase new nuclear magnetic resonance equipment necessitated by construction and operation of the Central Corridor Light Rail Transit project;
- $5 million to support informatics research across the university; and,
- $3 million in matching funds to support the purchase of a new supercomputer for the Minnesota Supercomputing Institute for Advanced Computational Research.