Partnerships propel discovery, new initiatives, and economic progress for the region

Peter Alfonso, Vice President for Research

Partnerships propel discovery, new initiatives, and economic progress for the region.

Welcome to the third edition of UND Discovery, the research magazine of the University of North Dakota.  This year’s theme is a continuation of last year’s important focus, namely university engagement, in which we discussed UND’s progress in achieving national recognition as a fully engaged research institution.

Recall that engagement in this context implies partnerships marked by reciprocity and synergisms.  As an engaged research university UND aims to partner with the community in which we live by crafting initiatives marked by shared goals and agendas, by outcomes that are meaningful to both the university and the community, and by collaborative leveraging of university, public, and private funds.  Engagement in this context is dynamic and fundamentally different from “outreach” and “public service,” which traditionally refer to one-way processes whereby the university presents its expertise to the public by various means.  Rather, we aim to focus largely on research that is receptive to societal needs by forming partnerships based on a culture of engagement.

In this issue we present a host of examples of partnerships that stem from an evolving campuswide culture of engagement.  The lead article talks about nurturing a partnership among UND, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the U.S. Air Force that eventually led to the establishment of the new UND National Suborbital Education and Research Center (NSERC).  Richard Shetter, the NSERC director who most recently served as a research scientist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research, will manage environmentally based scientific missions around the globe such as investigating the origins of hurricanes and the efficacy of the ozone layer, all of which will take place aboard UND’s most recently established laboratory, a specialized DC-8 aircraft laden with 30,000 pounds of scientific instrumentation, scientists, and crew.

While the UND airborne laboratory will conduct science up to 42,000 feet, another successful partnership between UND and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Grand Forks Human Nutrition Research Center (GFHNRC) conducts meaningful science at ground level.  Working with a number of private sector units, UND and the GFHNRC are working to enhance an understanding of the health benefits associated with locally produced foods such as beans and buckwheat.  About half of the nation’s bean production takes place in the North Dakota and Minnesota regions, and the area’s high soil concentration of selenium can lead to increased production of specialty foods, such as buckwheat, that may prove effective in combating chronic diseases such as cancer and diabetes.

Speaking of improving health and wellness, Dr. Mary Wakefield, director of the nationally acclaimed UND Center for Rural Health, was elected to the National Academy of Science Institute of Medicine this year, the first North Dakotan to receive this high honor.  Dr. Wakefield’s award is in part a reflection of the Center’s engagement with community, state, and federal officials in the maintenance and development of rural health delivery systems.

Not only is UND research on the move, but the economic impact of UND research is clearly being felt throughout our five-state Upper Midwest region.  UND awards and expenditures have doubled in the past four years and for the second consecutive year are at about $80 million.  UND research awards of $80 million in fiscal year 2005 yield $163 million of additional economic impact, 1,584 jobs, nearly $6 million of state and local taxes, and over $15 million in federal taxes.  And these numbers do not include the economic impact related to commercialization of UND technologies and discoveries.

In this regard, the UND Research Foundation (UNDRF), which was formed this past year, is partnering with the City of Grand Forks and the North Dakota Department of Commerce to develop the UND Research Enterprise and Commercialization (REAC) campus.  REAC’s first initiative is to provide key infrastructure, including wet laboratories, equipment and intellectual capital for joint research collaborations and new businesses in the areas of life sciences and advanced technologies.  UNDRF will manage the intellectual property stemming from UND research; from this we aim to form new corporate entities and joint ventures with partners along the Red River Valley Research Corridor.  With time these seeded partnerships between UND faculty and students and corporate shareholders will form magnet clusters to attract other companies from around the world to launch a new dimension of economic growth for people of Grand Forks and North Dakota.  Equally important, the REAC campus is expected to provide not only corporate training for students but also to provide future jobs for students to remain in North Dakota.

I’m confident that this edition of UND Discovery will lead you to see that UND is well on its way to becoming a fully engaged research institution of the highest caliber, bringing its resources to bear on the problems facing the region, the nation, and the world.  We aim to focus mainly on research that matters most to the people that we serve.

Peter Alfonso
Vice President for Research