U.S.’s Innovative Edge Tied to Research in States Like Alabama

By Chris Bryant

EPSCoR states, like Alabama, are home to 20 percent of the nation's doctoral universities.
EPSCoR states, like Alabama, are home to 20 percent of the nation’s doctoral universities.

Statewide, Alabama receives less than one-half of 1 percent of all National Science Foundation research dollars annually. However, with political winds seemingly blowing in favor of a proposed doubling of the NSF budget, a group of national experts, including the University of Alabama’s Dr. Keith McDowell, is developing a new vision for science and engineering programs within those historically under funded states.

Organizers of an NSF-funded assembly in Arlington, Va., invited McDowell, vice president for research and the state’s executive director of EPSCoR, to participate in the EPSCoR 2020 Workshop in mid-June. The Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research, or EPSCoR, was created by NSF in 1980 in response to Congressional concerns over the research funding imbalance.

In 2004, five states received 43 percent of all NSF research and development funding. Alabama and the other 24 states comprising EPSCoR, when combined, only received 10 percent. This despite the fact that EPSCoR states are home to 20 percent of the nation’s doctoral universities and have dramatically improved their capacities to conduct leading-edge research.

“We are very different than what we were 25 years ago,” McDowell said of Alabama and its fellow EPSCoR states. “And that begs the question, why are we not getting our 20 percent?”

The Bush Administration’s American Competitiveness Initiative is proposing, among other things, doubling the NSF budget over the next 10 years.

“You simply can’t have a competitive USA without 25 of your states being competitive,” said McDowell, who holds a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Wake Forest University and a doctorate in chemical physics from Harvard. “A few clustered research centers are not going to work in global competitiveness.”

Dr. Keith McDowell
Dr. Keith McDowell

Quickly spotting “transformational research” opportunities, discoveries which will later redefine approaches to scientific challenges, and establishing related programs within EPSCoR states are key, said McDowell, an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow.

While EPSCoR’s research infrastructure improvement awards are helping close the gap, many EPSCoR states would need about 15 additional years worth of awards to even the playing field, McDowell estimates.

In testimony before a House Appropriations Subcommittee in 2005, McDowell, who was a researcher and administrator with the Los Alamos National Laboratory from 1979-1991 and who, in 2000, won the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching from the University of Texas System, described the importance of establishing a vibrant nationwide research community.

“Each state deserves an opportunity to reap the educational, economic and technological benefits that come from having a strong research presence. And, students – most of whom will attend college within 100 miles of home – deserve an opportunity to be exposed to and participate in research activities.”

Further Reading

Contact

Cathy Andreen, Director of Media Relations, 205/348-8322, candreen@ur.ua.edu

Source

Clif Davis, UA Alumni Affairs, 205/348-5978