Research Ripples Beyond Colleges

A $6 million National Institutes of Health grant awarded in October to three campuses of the University of Arkansas system is expected to create a network of research laboratories, spawn more graduate students and perhaps even attract high-tech industries to the state.

The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock will receive the bulk of the three-year grant to coordinate the biomedical research network, or Arkansas BRIN project. But the UA and the UA at Little Rock will both share in the funding and work, which includes about $1.1 million coming to the main campus in Fayetteville.

Opportunities to participate in research will be given to other institutions, including the UA at Pine Bluff, Arkansas State University in Jonesboro and the University of Central Arkansas and Hendrix College, both in Conway. The Arkansas School for Mathematics and Sciences and the National Center for Toxicology Research are also possibilities.

Even for the business crowd that’s not interested in science or academia, this is good news for Arkansas’ economy.

According to the 2000 report authored by Jeff Collins and Craig Schulman titled, “Priming the Pump: Research as a Catalyst for Economic Growth,” the ripple effects of research grants extend beyond college campuses. Collins, director of the UA Center for Business and Economic Research, and Schulman, an economist and former UA professor, said there are two ways to look at the return.

The pair determined that an investment of $1 per capita in research and development results in “a long run real return of $8.02 in per capita personal income.” Their study also said the annual rate of return a research dollar yields in Arkansas is 23.2 percent, based on a current 10-year time horizon.

That would mean the state could expect about a $48 million return on this one grant over the next decade. Or in Northwest Arkansas, at least an $8.8 million return over the same span. But that doesn’t even include the possible recruitment of additional biomedical and biotechnical businesses to the state based on the availability of new researchers and master’s-level graduates.

Donald Bobbitt — a chemistry professor, associate dean of research for the UA’s Fulbright College of Arts & Sciences and Fayetteville’s BRIN administrator — helped write the grant proposal in January. He said despite improvements, Arkansas still has a lower percentage of people with bachelor’s and master’s degrees than most other states.

“We’re looking far down the road at the number of individuals who will graduate with research-related degrees,” Bobbitt said. “There are many firms in the high technology sector, biomedical sciences or engineering and computer sciences that need folks with higher degrees. Since we have fewer of those people here, those companies are less likely to locate here. But over time, that could change.”

The university received a combined $60 million in research funding for fiscal 2001, a 20 percent increase over the $50 million received in 2000. The university’s goal is to hit $100 million annually by 2010.