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Reshaping University research – Security-related programs rolling in government funding

Steve Kornguth began his academic career seeking a cure for brain cancer at the University of Wisconsin.

But about eight years ago, Kornguth shifted his focus and began looking for ways to detect and defeat biological and chemical attacks. Today, he is director of the Biological and Chemical Countermeasures Program at the University of Texas’s Institute for Advanced Technology.

Bob Keefe
Cox News Service Spokesman Review

It turned out to be a smart and timely move.

Federal funding for Kornguth’s program hit almost $5 million this year, nearly three times what it was just two years ago. Researchers connected with his program are working on projects such as anthrax detection sensors and computer networks that can sift disease data to quickly determine whether the nation is under biological attack.

"Clearly, the concerns (of national security) have had a major effect on our program and everybody else’s in the country," Kornguth said.

Across the nation, a fundamental change is reshaping university research, driven by a new national priority on homeland security and the growing importance of government rather than private funding.

Just a few years ago, the most-talked about research coming out of academia was geared toward commercial applications such as making the Internet work better or creating new medical devices like implantable insulin monitors.

To be sure, research and innovation in those areas continues. But security-related research is pushing to the forefront.

Computer research that once was directed at making corporate networks more secure, for instance, now focuses on national cyberattacks by terrorists. Biotech research once directed toward identifying diseases is now being expanded to identify potential biological weapons. Work in areas such as wireless networks and sensors is being directed toward creating chemical attack alarms.

And those sorts of projects are just the beginning.

Added funding from the Department of Defense and the new Department of Homeland Security is poised to spur a renaissance in security-related research the likes of which hasn’t been seen since early days of the Cold War.

"It’s just blossoming," said Charles Liotta, vice provost for research at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, where researchers are working on products such as a radar flashlight that can help disaster recovery workers find bodies behind walls and computer software that can help diagnose casualties in biological attacks.

Added Juan Sanchez, vice president of research at the University of Texas, "We’re just seeing the tip of the iceberg."

Following the money
At most big universities, the single biggest source of research money is the federal government. Traditionally, that money has come in relatively predictable ebbs and flows.

But since the terrorist and anthrax mail attacks of 2001, Department of Defense spending on university research has risen by 27 percent, while spending by the Department of Health and Human Services soared by 31 percent, according to the National Science Foundation.

By contrast, spending for research by NASA, which has funded some of the nation’s biggest and most innovative research projects, rose 12 percent during the same period. Research funding from the Department of Agriculture, meanwhile, rose by only 3 percent.

The increased federal funding couldn’t have come at a better time for many university research labs. Private funding from companies and individuals, often for research with specific commercial or health applications, was declining along with corporate profits and consumers’ stock portfolios.

Last year, private giving to colleges and universities fell for the first time more than 15 years. Corporate giving also dried up. At the University of Texas, for example, grants for R&D from industry dropped by nearly 14 percent last year to about $26 million.

Across the country at Georgia Tech, overall donations by alums and others are up because of a five-year fund drive. But grants from companies for research and other purposes have slid steadily, from $30 million in 1999 to about $22 million last year.

The decline in corporate gifts isn’t expected to stop any time soon.

"My personal assessment is that it’s going to stay in place as long as there are continued pressures on companies for profitability," said Barrett Carson, vice president of development at Georgia Tech.

Separately, endowments — essentially colleges’ saving accounts — are shrinking too. Last year, the value of college endowments declined by 6 percent, according to the National Association of College and University Business Officers.

Endowments shrank by nearly 4 percent in 2001, and last year marked the first time endowments declined in consecutive years since the group started tracking them in 1971. Much of the decline in both years was because of the falling value of donated stock.

Colleges now must look for research money where it’s available, and often that means government agencies that are interested primarily in homeland defense.

"The core research is the same," said Sanchez at the University of Texas, where federal R&D funding rose 12 percent last year to $219 million, helping offset the decline in private giving. "But what I see happening is that the faculty is realigning their activities to match the sources of federal funding."

Computer research that was once directed at making corporate networks more secure, for instance, now focuses on cyber-attacks by terrorists. Research to cure cattle diseases is now directed toward studying how terrorists could decimate the livestock industry with biological agents.

"I think it’s going to affect proposal writing more than anything else," said Michael Levi, science and technology fellow at the Brookings Institution, a research group in Washington. "Academics, just like anybody, understand it’s all about sales.

"A few years ago, you’d tell everybody you were doing biotech or nanotech research and they’d give you a million dollars," Levi said. "Today, you tell them you’re doing homeland security."

Tweaking research to make it applicable to the whims of government or corporate America is something many academics are used to.

"A chemist will always be a chemist, and an electrical engineer will always be an electrical engineer," said Liotta of Georgia Tech. "But how they apply their disciplines depends upon the needs of the time."

The breadth of the government’s interest in homeland security is so far-reaching that even university laboratories with seemingly little connection to such issues can get into the game.

The Texas Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Lab at Texas A&M University, for example, recently got a $2 million grant from the USDA, not for research but to refit and expand its labs.

Why? Because the USDA wants to equip the lab and four others around the country to quickly identify potential biological attacks by terrorists on livestock and wildlife.

"There are probably a dozen diseases in the world that are available to terrorists that can create economic devastation if used on animal agriculture in this country," said Lelve Gayle, executive director of the lab, part of its new Integrative Center for Homeland Security.

"It’s amazing where the ripples could go economically when you think about shutting down slaughter plants, trucking companies, feed lots," he said, "not to mention the environmental problems you’d have if you have kill a million head of (infected) 1,000-pound steers."

The future of innovation

Could the increased emphasis on defense and homeland security research stymie private-sector innovation?

In recent years, research at American universities has led to inventions ranging from the Web browser to cardiac catheters. Tech hubs such as Silicon Valley and Boston have roots that extend deep into schools like Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Research at places such as Georgia Tech and the University of Texas have spawned countless new companies.

Researchers say the focus on homeland defense projects, even if some are under the shroud of government secrecy, doesn’t necessarily mean commercial innovation will suffer.

After all, they point out, some of the most world-changing technologies — even the Internet itself — came out of Pentagon-funded university research.

"I think there are still going to be technologies with dual uses," said Sanchez. "Some of the technologies used for detection of bio(logical) agents, for example, will have general applications in medicine and diagnostics."

Levi, of the Brookings Institution, said it may be tougher to commercialize new technologies borne of homeland security projects because of government rules and secrecy.

But that doesn’t mean they won’t eventually evolve into commercial projects, he and others said, just as research during the Cold War and the space race spawned many consumer and business products that are commonplace today.

"Certainly if research is being done under classified (constraints) it makes it obviously more difficult to commercialize them," he said. "But I don’t think you’re going to see a huge tilt away from the Silicon Valley-type (innovation).

"That sort of thing is going to continue. It’s just on top of it, there’s going to be even more money flowing" into university research, he said.

http://www.spokesmanreview.com/news-story.asp?date=080303&ID=s1389689&cat=section.business

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