MSU research spending hits record $80 Million level

Research spending at Montana State University is heading for a record $80 million this year, and university officials say that’s great news for students, professors and the entire state’s economy.

By GAIL SCHONTZLER Chronicle Staff Writer

MSU President Geoff Gamble said Thursday he’s "delighted" by what’s shaping up to be a 20 percent jump from last year’s record of $66 million. It shows, Gamble said, "how productive our faculty are."

In the short run, research dollars boost the state and local economies by paying salaries and buying supplies, Gamble said.

In the long run, MSU’s cutting-edge research — on everything from fuel cells to wheat pests — has the power to revitalize the state’s economy heading into the future, the president said.

To get an idea how big MSU’s research spending has grown, it’s now roughly double the budget for instruction — which was around $40 million this year, according to figures from the university’s budget committee.

Research spending is close to rivaling the total $87 million spent on running MSU for a year, the so-called "current unrestricted" budget, which pays for everything from salaries to electric bills.

That doesn’t mean teaching is taking a back seat to research, insisted Tom McCoy, MSU vice president for research.

"Discovery and learning — they cannot be viewed as separate activities," McCoy said.

While most at MSU see the quantum leap in research as an unmitigated good, one long-time critic of MSU’s priorities contends there are hidden costs.

Ed Mooney, associate professor of industrial and management engineering, argued research is a great thing, but it is being subsidized by students’ tuition and taxpayers’ dollars.

Mooney’s argument goes like this: When MSU wins federal research grants, its grants and contracts department tells the agency that MSU needs 41.5 percent to cover overhead costs — heat and lights, secretaries and the like. But MSU actually collects less — 15 percent, he said.

The difference has to be paid from somewhere, Mooney said, and that means dipping into MSU’s two biggest money sources — tuition and state dollars. In addition, most of the 15 percent never goes to overhead. MSU uses most of the money to promote more research, by remodeling labs, for example.

"I love research," Mooney said. "It’s what we’re all trained to do. It’s my favorite thing, to be working with a grad student on research.

"(But) is it right to ask undergraduates to pay for it?" he asked. "We have a responsibility as a land-grant institution to provide an affordable, quality undergraduate education. That’s our first priority. … I’m concerned tuition increases, especially for Montana residents, are funding a lot of this stuff."

McCoy rejects Mooney’s argument as "totally erroneous" on several grounds. First, McCoy said, MSU collects closer to 19 percent for overhead (known as indirect costs or "F&A," facilities and administration).

Second, Congress has decreed that some U.S. Agriculture Department research grants will pay little or no overhead. Does MSU want to tell Montana farmers and ranchers, McCoy asked, that it won’t accept $1 million for fighting brucellosis or wheat stem sawfly because it won’t get overhead dollars?

McCoy said the grants and contracts office, technology transfer, pre-award office and his own office are all paid for with grant overhead money.

And the renovated labs have "vastly improved teaching space" at MSU at a time when the state has very little money for buildings.

If anything, McCoy argued, research is subsidizing students’ education, by paying individual students stipends and buying better equipment and labs.

If $80 million worth of research were taken out of MSU, McCoy said, "this place would be a podunk university."

Several factors have contributed to MSU’s research growth, according to McCoy. Congress has doubled funding for the National Institutes of Health over the last five years to $27 billion, and MSU has succeeded in winning some of that money.

MSU has also succeeded in attracting several accomplished scientists, like Allen Harmsen, director of the Veterinary Molecular Biology Lab, who brought four NIH grants to MSU when he moved here from back East.

Bozeman’s lifestyle is part of the attraction, and MSU has a "critical mass" of highly competent researchers, McCoy said. "Not only is Bozeman a pretty nice place" compared to congested cities, but scientists figure they can join "an elite team."

McCoy rejected the idea that MSU is winning more money because it’s getting more federal grants "earmarked" by Congress. Earmarks are sometimes criticized as pork-barrel projects inserted in the federal budget by senators and congressmen, as opposed to grants won from federal agencies by competing with other scientists.

In February, when Congress finally passed a 2003 budget, it included roughly $23.7 million earmarked for MSU research, up from $16.7 million the year before and $14.9 million the year before that, according to McCoy’s office.

Yet it will take months for those new earmarked funds to arrive in Bozeman, McCoy said. So the great majority of MSU’s research grant dollars this year were won through competition.

The books on the 2003 academic year won’t close until June 30, so McCoy said he doesn’t yet have a breakdown on how much of the record $80 million is attributed to each department. The colleges of Letters and Sciences, Agriculture and Engineering usually are the leading grant-winners.

Gamble sees all of MSU as winning from research. The benefits far outweigh the costs, he said.

Gamble said Mooney does have a point, that the university has to keep teaching and research in balance. The president said it’s up to MSU’s leaders to make sure that happens.

"I believe absolutely that universities, when you get rid of all the other stuff, do two things: We educate and we discover new knowledge," Gamble said. "I’m dedicated to doing both extremely well."

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