Resilient, robust research: Heart of dynamic economy beats strong at UF, other Florida universities

Published: May 19 2008

Category:Op-Eds

This op-ed appeared May 19 in the Orlando Sentinel.

By: Win Phillips
Win Phillips is the vice president for research at the University of Florida.

With the economy faltering, state and federal cutbacks threaten to slow scientific progress. As many commentators have noted in recent months, that is not a welcome trend for a nation facing the leveled plane of a globalized economy.

But there is also reason for optimism.

The U.S. research and development system, one that relies heavily on the nation’s public and private universities, remains the envy of the world. And far from stagnating, the science and engineering occurring today at these universities is leaping forward, the result of changes at once cultural, technological and institutional. These changes haven’t received a lot of attention outside academe, but they are reshaping the definition of science in America, raising its potential for good even as its financial support dwindles.

One huge change has to do with how university scientists work.

Where researchers traditionally toiled away as individuals or in small groups of like-minded colleagues, they are increasingly attuned to the benefits of collaboration with those outside their narrow range of expertise. Universities, for their part, are steadily shaking off traditional reward systems that encouraged overspecialization, replacing them with promotion or tenure incentives for faculty who stretch beyond their fields.

Another change is technological. Thanks to increasing computing power, ambitious research no longer need require ultra-expensive laboratory or field equipment. For more and more researchers, simulation has become a cheaper, even a more powerful, option. There are even fields devoted entirely to computer-based research of the living or physical worlds. “Computational biology,” for example, relies on silicon over cells.

A third change: While still devoted to pure science, universities are ever-more focused on science that matters to people today. The result is, universities are as likely to market discoveries as to publish them, speeding their delivery to the public.

These changes may seem broad and conceptual, but they have a real and practical impact. This is clear from research at my own university, the University of Florida. Several notable new UF initiatives tell the story:

* The Emerging Pathogens Institute. This dedicated interdisciplinary institute pulls together scientists from no less than eight colleges to work together on confronting the pathogens that menace not just humans, but also animals and plants. Such a global focus would have been unheard of a few years ago, with most institutes focused either on biodefense or specific diseases such as malaria.

* The Florida Institute of Sustainable Energy — Energy Technology Incubator. With a biofuel pilot plant and a prototype development laboratory, this state Center of Excellence will grow promising energy technologies from the research to the prototype stage. In the past, it was rare for universities to focus resources on “scaling up” discoveries to test their merit as industrial products. The incubator shifts the paradigm.

* The UF Water Institute. The severe drought that plagued much of the Southeast last year made obvious the growing need to ensure adequate water supplies for people and nature alike. But while UF had many researchers working on many diverse water problems, nothing drew them together to work on common goals and solutions. The Water Institute does that, and it also brings industry public policy groups into the mix.

* UF’s growing ties with other leading research and medical institutions around the state, including Scripps Florida in Jupiter, the Burnham Institute for Medical Research near Orlando and Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa. Institutional egos aside, the fact is that the big questions in science and medicine are too complex for one institution to tackle alone, making linkages essential. If UF lacks an expert, piece of equipment or database, chances are it may be available elsewhere, and vice versa.

The current contraction is not the first “down” cycle in the U.S. economy in the past 70 years, and it won’t be the last. But beginning with the nation’s recovery from World War II, U.S. university research has always been at the heart of the nation’s economic strength. It was university research, after all, that sparked the information technology revolution. And university research has also been critical to the genesis of biotechnology and nanotechnology, both seen as key to a future of booming world population and increasing strain on natural resources.

If history is any guide, the sea change in university laboratories and research centers today will play a similarly positive role in the nation’s recovery from its current doldrums — and in maintaining our global status in the longer term.

Credits

Media Contact
Aaron Hoover, ahoover@ufl.edu, 352-392-0186

Category:Op-Eds