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University of Wisconsin Remains State's Biggest Research Spender

Posted on: Friday, 23 September 2005, 00:00 CDT

Sep. 23--Research spending -- the catalyst for creating high-paying knowledge economy jobs -- is rising in the state, but the University of Wisconsin continues to be the dominant research school, with 82 cents of every research dollar in the state spent on the Madison campus.

Recently released National Science Foundation figures show UW-Madison retained its distinction as the fourth-biggest research institution in the country, with a jump of nearly 9 percent to $721 million spent on research.

The Medical College of Wisconsin followed with $108 million of research spending. All of the state's doctoral-granting institutions' combined for a total of $881 million spent on research.

The National Science Foundation figures, considered by many to be the standard for determining the amount of research activity at U.S. doctoral-granting institutions, include research dollars from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. They cover the 2003 fiscal year, the most recent period for which the NSF has collected data.

Academic discoveries often spur new, high-tech companies that provide high-skill, high-paying jobs.

UW-Madison is one of only four schools in the country that rank in the top 20 for research spending in the four areas that venture capitalists find most promising to mine for technologies that might spur new companies, said John Neis, senior partner at Venture Investors LLC in Madison. Those areas are: life sciences, engineering, physical sciences and computer science, he said.

UW-Madison's focus in recent years on interdisciplinary research and hiring clusters of four or five highly skilled researchers in different areas who can work together on world-class efforts has positioned the school well, Neis said.

"They are as poised to take advantage of the innovation that comes out of interaction between different departments and creates new opportunities as anyone in the country," he said.

The rankings confirm that the university is "still a major player," and allow it to attract more top faculty and graduate students, said Martin T. Cadwallader, vice chancellor for research and dean of UW-Madison's graduate school.

"It's hard to overstate the importance of having a UW-Madison in a state of our size and our geography," said Tom Still, president of the Wisconsin Technology Council. "By and large, these institutions are on the coast and near major metropolitan areas, and we have here in the heartland one of the top five research institutions in the country."

The Medical College of Wisconsin is southeastern Wisconsin's bright spot. Its research spending grew 12.3 percent in 2003 and is expected to increase for the subsequent year, said David Gutterman, senior associate dean for research.

The Medical College is making progress with its clinical cancer center and in translational research, a new focus for the National Institutes for Health that involves translating basic scientific research observations into patient care, Gutterman said. The school also is building a research center and hiring researchers.

Still, Milwaukee's four biggest research schools lagged UW-Madison's figures considerably, with a combined $149,700 of spending -- another sign of why they need to work together to gain critical research mass that can drive high-tech company creation .

"We think there's a lot of opportunity to bring these institutions together to start thinking as a whole," said Brian Thompson, managing director of TechStar, which was formed by five area research centers and helps form start-ups from technology coming out of academic institutions.

TechStar and the Medical College last year helped start the Biomedical Technology Alliance. The alliance has a goal of creating collaborative research projects between the Medical College, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Marquette University, the Milwaukee School of Engineering and the UW-Parkside.

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Copyright (c) 2005, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

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Source: The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

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