UNIVERSITY RESEARCH CORRIDOR: A SAMPLING OF PARTNERSHIPS

• Talent Attraction and Retention
• Economic Development
• Research Partnerships
• Examples of Joint Life Sciences, Biotech and Healthcare Projects
• Regional and Community Outreach Efforts

TALENT ATTRACTION AND RETENTION

The Higher Education Recruitment Consortium

The URC presidents invited representatives of a wide array of Michigan colleges and universities to gather at MSU March 30 to form a Higher Education Recruitment Consortium (HERC). By early 2007, 24 colleges and universities had joined the Ann Arbor-based consortium.

The consortium makes it easier to recruit and retain talented faculty and staff by helping spouses find openings at nearby universities within the region. For example, if U-M had an opening and the best candidate was married to another academic, the consortium might help find the spouse an opening at Wayne, MSU, Eastern, University of Detroit or a host of other possible options.

For more on HERC, visit: www.michiganherc.org

The Pfizer action teams

When Pfizer announced it would be cutting 2,400 Michigan jobs, the three universities partnered with community, government and business leaders to organize rapid response action teams to retain the talented Pfizer work force in the state and to help find new uses for Pfizer’s 177 acre Ann Arbor campus. U-M President Mary Sue Coleman also announced the investment of $3 million to create new faculty positions to hire talented Pfizer workers.

U-M and Ann Arbor SPARK announced in October 2007 they have transformed Pfizer’s former Traverwood facility into a wet lab incubator and are already filling the facility with four startup company tenants and other researchers. MSU has similar plans for a larger former Pfizer facility in Holland. In December 2008, U-M reached a deal to purchase the rest of Pfizer’s Ann Arbor campus to turn it into a new research campus, creating 2,000 new jobs. The deal is expected to close in June 2009.

SPARK is establishing two additional office incubators in Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti. Altogether, SPARK is working with 31 startup businesses that have or plan to move into one of their three business accelerators.

URC institutions partner with Western Michigan to boost number of minorities in math, science

U-M, MSU, Wayne State and Western Michigan joined together in 2006 to launch the Michigan-Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation program, a federal initiative designed to attract and retain under-represented minorities to science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).

The five year, $5 million program is supported by a National Science Foundation grant. The four partner schools hope to increase the number of under-represented minorities earning baccalaureate degrees in STEM areas by 50 percent in five years, and by 100 percent in 10 years.

The alliance universities establish a student ambassadors program; collaborate with other STEM groups such as the American Chemical Society; make it easier to earn dual degrees in STEM areas; develop pre-first year summer transition programs; involve more undergraduate students in research projects; and increase participation in MI-LSAMP internships and residential learning programs.

Making it easier for community college students to obtain bachelor’s degrees

MSU and the Michigan Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers in November launched the Michigan Transfer Network(www.michigantransfernetwork.org) to make it easier for community college students to transfer to four-year universities. U-M Flint and Dearborn are part of the effort but U-M Ann Arbor is not yet at part of the effort.

In 2006, U-M was one of eight top universities in the nation to receive Jack Kent Cooke Foundation grants to increase opportunities for high-achieving low-income community college students to earn bachelor’s degrees from selective four-year institutions. Together, the universities and the foundation will invest $27 million. A team of U-M admissions and financial aid staff made plans to visit the campuses of all 31 Michigan community and tribal colleges.  A program was also called for to expand U-M’s existing Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program to give community college students considering transfer an opportunity to do research with U-M faculty.

Saving 4,100 TACOM jobs, creating more than 1,000 new jobs

In 2005, the federal base closure commission debated whether to close the Detroit Arsenal in Warren, home of TACOM and more than 4,100 jobs. The URC universities plus many other in-state universities each have research projects working with federal and private industry researchers. They joined with private and public officials in making the case for the value of keeping TACOM Instead of cutting jobs, the base closure commission voted to save those 4,100 jobs and move more than 1,000 jobs from other states to Michigan, citing the "critical mass" of research expertise from universities and private industry.

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Economic development organizations

Each of the partners have been leaders in establishing major economic development organizations designed to attract new industries and jobs to their regions.

U-M helped establish Ann Arbor SPARK, an economic development and marketing organization for greater Ann Arbor, in 2005 with the goal to double the number of technology companies and triple technology jobs in the region by 2010, making the greater Ann Arbor region a hub of entrepreneurial energy. The CEO is Mike Finney, who held a similar role in Rochester, N.Y., home of Kodak, which has grappled with the historic change caused by the shift from film to digital cameras. For more on SPARK, visit: www.annarborspark.org

MSU helped establish Prima Civitas in 2006, with a mission to help Michigan reemerge as an economic powerhouse, diversify Mid-Michigan’s economy, and transform the region into one of the most innovative in the world. Prima Civitas President David Hollister is a former Lansing mayor, lawmaker and directed the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Growth before leaving to start the foundation. For more information, visit: www.primacivitas.org

Wayne State helped establish TechTown, Detroit’s only research and development park, as a community of entrepreneurs, investors, mentors, service providers and corporate partners creating an internationally recognized entrepreneurial village. Spanning 12 city blocks, the incubator provides the support and access to capital needed to build high tech companies. Randall Charlton, who moved his company, Asterand, from England to TechTown, recently took the helm of the organization. For more information, visit: www.techtownwsu.org

URC partnering on efforts to bring together Big Ten/CIC/Federal Reserve

Working as partners rather than rivals is central to Michigan’s University Research Corridor as well as efforts to more closely tie together Big Ten universities across the Midwest.

Twelve provosts, the chief academic officers of the CIC (the Big Ten universities plus the University of Chicago, a former Big Ten member) this summer pledged to work together on efforts to make the Midwest’s economy more competitive and are calling on governors to join them in this effort. Discussions for next steps are ongoing.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) reported that the 12 CIC universities received over $3.1 billion in federal science and engineering support in FY2005, 12.4 percent of the total federal science and engineering dollars — some $25.4 billion — awarded in the United States. CIC universities have been awarded 18 percent of the total NSF science and engineering dollars, and nearly 16 percent of the total U.S. Department of Agriculture dollars. For more on the efforts: www.urcmich.org/events/cic

Embracing a Green Michigan

The governor’s chief energy adviser believes that Michigan’s University Research Corridor combined with its manufacturing strength and its water, wind, solar, work force and wood resources can help the state create “tens of thousands” of new energy-related jobs.

Stanley “Skip” Pruss, Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s special adviser for alternative energy and the environment, publicly unveiled a state road map that drew on input from URC and business leaders for making the state a leader in the development of a green energy industry. For more on Embracing a Green Michigan, visit:
www.urcmich.org/events/green

Michigan-China Leadership Forum

University Research Corridor officials in May 2008 had two weeks of high-level exchanges with their counterparts from 18 top Chinese universities, laying the groundwork for future partnerships.

While the URC presidents regularly work to accelerate research and tech transfer efforts, China has pursued a concerted plan to expand higher education to energize its economy, more than quadrupling the number of college graduates over the past decade.

During the Michigan-China Leadership Forum, URC officials discussed ways they can work together to advance trade, innovation and economic growth and other exchanges for faculty and students. The URC also connected the delegation with top state and local officials and economic development officials. Research universities are major economic engines and job creators in both nations.

For more on the exchanges, visit: www.urcmich.org/news/china.html

State’s public universities announce Michigan Initiative for Innovation & Entrepreneurship

The Michigan Initiative for Innovation & Entrepreneurship (MIIE) builds on Michigan’s universities as economic assets by speeding the commercialization of university research while promoting a culture of entrepreneurial risk-taking. The initiative partners Michigan’s philanthropic resources with university and private business resources to help launch new startup companies, and strengthen ties between small business, industry and academia.

The goal of MIIE is to create 200 new Michigan start-ups over the next decade, while fostering an atmosphere of entrepreneurship on campuses around the state. The MIIE consortium will raise and distribute $75 million over the next seven years — mainly through donations from some of the more than 2,200 philanthropic foundations across the state — and match those funds with resources and funding from universities and private businesses. For more on the effort:
www.pcsum.org/miie.html

The Michigan Universities Commercialization Initiative

In 2001, MSU, U-M and Wayne organized the Michigan Universities Commercialization Initiative (MUCI) to enhance technology transfer activities by working closely with venture capital and industry representatives.

The MUCI Challenge Fund is a competitive, peer reviewed award program that provides essential gap funding for early-stage technologies with potential for commercialization. An Incubator Liaison helped member institutions procure incubation space and facilities, which were not readily available prior to the SmartZone system’s development. MUCI also disseminated technology transfer educational materials and shared best practices through newsletters, a website, publications, and joint meetings.

The early focus on Life Sciences has expanded to include Advanced Automotive & Engineering, Alternative Energy, and Homeland Security through a new $4.75 million grant from the 21st Century Jobs Fund that extends the program until January 2009. To date the Challenge Fund has distributed $3 million in awards from prior MEDC awards to help commercialize technologies. Many supported technologies have been licensed to existing companies or have become the nucleus of new start-up companies.

The Van Andel Research Institute in Grand Rapids joined the collaboration almost immediately and several smaller public universities joined in recent years.

In 2003, Central Michigan University, Eastern Michigan University, Grand Valley State University and Michigan Technological University became members. Western Michigan University joined in 2004 and Oakland University followed in 2005.

Some companies helped through the initiative:

For more on the initiative, visit: www.muci.org

The Core Technology Alliance

The CTA Corp. is a not-for-profit non-stock membership organization founded by MSU, U-M, Wayne State and the Van Andel Research Institute. It later was expanded to include Western Michigan University and Kalamazoo Valley Community College.

The commercially oriented, community-spirited, and technologically sophisticated centers of excellence are fee-for-service laboratories to support biomedical research. The goal is for the Core Technology Alliance to be a catalyst for development of life sciences and biotechnology research and development by providing access to advanced technologies to Michigan researchers affiliated with universities, private research institutes and biotechnology or pharmaceutical firms.

For more information, visit: www.ctaalliance.org

RESEARCH PARTNERSHIPS

Research libraries are linked

The research universities libraries have been linked electronically since 1994 through the Michigan Research Libraries Triangle, allowing students, faculty and staff borrowing privileges at any of the three universities. For more on the partnership, visit: www.lib.umich.edu/circ/mrlt.html

A sampling of energy initiatives

The URC members are working together and individually on a number of initiatives related to developing alternative energy. Here are a few examples:

Top energy experts from the University Research Corridor, U.S. auto makers and U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman gathered in early 2007 at U-M, home of the new Michigan Memorial Phoenix Energy Institute, for a major two day symposium on the challenges of developing new energy sources. U-M is investing more than $40 million per year in energy research.

The alternative energy efforts of the three URC partners, when combined, make the state of Michigan national leaders in developing alternative energy, notes MSU President Lou Anna Simon. MSU just opened a $10 million alternative energy research center and received its largest research grant ever, $50 million, to develop biofuels and is working with Michigan Technological University to develop biofuel.

Wayne State has attracted 28 businesses, as well as the headquarters of NextEnergy, to its TechTown research park. Wayne and NextEnergy are partnering to launch the National Biofuel Energy Lab.

MSU, NextEnergy at Wayne State’s TechTown and DaimlerChrysler are working on a project to turn industrial brownfields green. Kurt Thelen, MSU professor of crop and soil sciences, is leading the investigation to examine the possibility that some oilseed crops like soybeans, sunflower and canola, and other crops such as corn and switchgrass, can be grown on abandoned industrial sites for use in ethanol or biodiesel fuel production.

The project now is a two-acre parcel that is part of a former industrial dump site in Oakland County’s Rose Township.

MSU chemical engineer Bruce Dale was among a group of 10 leaders from industry, academia and government labs who were invited to brief President George W. Bush on biofuels and battery-powered vehicles in February. Dale is also associate director of the MSU Office of Biobased Technologies. Dale was asked whether the goal of reducing gasoline consumption by 20 percent in 10 years was achievable and his answer was, “Absolutely yes.”

Engineering and technology

MSU’s National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory, the largest campus-based nuclear science facility in the country, is home to a major high tech manufacturing facility where workers manufacture sophisticated parts for cyclotron research that involves researchers from all three universities as well as researchers from 100 institutions around the world. More than two-thirds of the manufacturing work is farmed out to private machine shops across the state.

U-M is home to the Solid State Electronics Laboratory and Michigan Nanofabrication Facility, which are used by researchers from Wayne and MSU as well other universities and businesses from around the world to develop integrated circuits and micro electromechanical systems (MEMS) and microsystems.

Researchers noted that a $2 million investment from the state in 1985, during another economic downturn helped the facility grow into a 24-7 operation that gets most of its support from user fees, leading to a new $100 million investment that will make the facility even more competitive.

The Center for Wireless Integrated Microsystems

The Center for Wireless Integrated Microsystems is a partnership between U-M, MSU and Michigan Technological University to develop tiny wireless devices that can serve as anything from sensors monitoring bridge safety or other environmental conditions to next generation medical implants.

“Michigan has a manufacturing base that understands high volume and quality from the factory floor to the Ph.D. level — most places on earth have one but they don’t have both,” notes Joe Giachino, who left an industry job to be part of the Center for Wireless Integrated Microsystems.

STIET

U-M and Wayne State announced they have joined forces through STIET, a multi-disciplinary research-education program involving corporations like Google, Yahoo and IBM to train the PhDs who will transform the Internet into one that is speedier, more secure and spam-free.

Simultaneously, they are developing new technology to make it easier for the best and brightest minds to collaborate, creating virtual classrooms and laboratories that enable faculty and students to share classes and laboratory assets seamlessly. Key to the effort is Michigan LambdaRail, an ultra high speed fiber optic network developed by the universities.

EXAMPLES OF JOINT LIFE SCIENCES, BIOTECH AND HEALTHCARE PROJECTS

Hospitals and healthcare

The U-M Health System plans to create 5,623 new full-time jobs between 2007 and 2012, and carry out more than $1 billion worth of new construction, which will create hundreds of temporary construction jobs each year between now and 2012. The projects including a half billion dollar new C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital and Women’s Hospital. Wayne State is expanding its medical campus as well and MSU this year announced medical expansions into Grand Rapids, Detroit and Macomb County.

National Children’s Study

Researchers from the three research universities are collaborating with Henry Ford Health System and Children’s Hospital of Michigan as part of the National Children’s Study, a massive federal effort to examine the effects of environmental influences on the health and development of more than 100,000 U.S. children, following them from before birth until age 21.

Traumatic Brain Research

Wayne State University’s Biomedical Engineering Department, proposing to manage a consortium of 14 research institutions including U-M, the Henry Ford Health System, TACOM, several military labs and the VA Medical Center in Detroit, is vying to become a national center for Traumatical Brain Injuries and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Over the last year, traumatic brain injury has become a hot national topic. Last summer, Congress allocated $300 million to fund research into TBI and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. In November, the Wayne State Biomedical Engineering Department submitted a $25-million proposal to become the national center of TBI research.

Under the proposal, Wayne State would be the lead institution, managing a consortium of 40 researchers from 14 institutions, including the University of Michigan, Henry Ford Hospital, John D. Dingell VA Medical Center in Detroit and several military labs, including TACOM in Warren.

Life Sciences Collaboration Team

The Life Sciences Collaborative Access Team is a partnership between all the Michigan Life Sciences structural biologists including researchers at U-M, Wayne, MSU, and the Van Andel Institute. It is also worked with researchers in other state. For more details , visit: http://www.ls-cat.org/

Another Life Sciences collaboration involves U-M’s Center for Chemical Genomics, David Sherman at U-M’s Life Sciences Institute and Rick Neubig at the U-M Medical School. They are collaborating with Wayne State on screens for targets on diabetes/metabolism and infectious disease.

Other health-related collaborations

KeraCure is a joint U-M/Wayne start-up, which is doing well and may have a product soon that is approved by the FDA for wound healing. 

U-M and MSU are the only places in Michigan taking part in a large-scale national trial to learn if the nutritional supplement creatine can slow the progression of Parkinson’s Disease. There is no treatment that has been shown to slow the progression of Parkinson’s disease but a mouse model of the disease found creatine could prevent loss of the cells that are typically affected.

U-M and MSU are studying ozone and particulate matter air pollution in communities with high levels of asthma and other respiratory diseases and testing their new vehicle in southwest Detroit. Jack Harkema, MSU University Distinguished Professor of Pathobiology and Diagnostic Investigation and scientists from U-M are working together on the Collaborative Air Research Effort (CARE).

They designed and built AirCARE 1, the only mobile air research laboratory of its kind in the country. The 53-foot-long, 8-foot-wide, 36,000- pound trailer contains three specially designed laboratories that allow scientists to conduct inhalation toxicology studies of real-world air pollution. For more information, visit:
www.sph.umich.edu/ehs/umaql/MARL.html

DNA Software in Ann Arbor combines science and software to enable industrial genomics through advances in technologies based on nucleic acids - the fundamental building blocks of the genome. The company’s first software platform, OMP (Oligonucleotide Modeling Platform), models in silico the folding and hybridization of single-stranded nucleic acids with great accuracy.

The company was formed in December 2000 and began operations in April 2001. It has secured an exclusive license to commercialize certain relevant intellectual property developed in the lab of Dr. SantaLucia at Wayne. In June 2000, a patent was filed to protect the processes necessary to effectively deploy the technology in future applications. Meditrina, also in Ann Arbor, is a good example of cross-state collaboration, with cooperation of several groups and redeployment of expertise from Pfizer and Pharmacia

W. Joseph McCune, M.D., a U-M professor of Internal Medicine, is part of the MiLES project working with Wayne. This is a Center for Disease Control- sponsored project to identify the incidence and prevalence of lupus in Wayne and Washtenaw counties. Particular attention is being paid to identifying individuals with poor access to medical care who might otherwise be overlooked

Gregory T. Wolf, M.D., chair of otolaryngology at U-M has an ongoing collaboration with Otolaryngology at Wayne and Oncology at Karmanos Cancer Institute to study chemoprevention with soy isoflavones in patients with head and neck cancer.

This is part of a renewal of a $14 million NCI SPORE grant application. U-M and Wayne collaborate on programs involving their anesthesia and pain programs. They set up the Advanced Regional Anesthesia: Invasive Pain Management Techniques and Regional Anesthesia Hands-on Workshop. For more information about this program, visit: www.med.wayne.edu/anesthesiology/CMEhome.htm

MSU psychology researchers are working on a major study on the causes of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and collaborating with U-M and Wayne researchers on related projects.

Wayne’s School of Nursing is operating a high tech distance learning center that is able to help train nurses as far away as Grand Rapids, Saginaw and other parts of the state.

K-12 education partnerships

URC education faculty, working with other universities across the state, helped develop new standardized tests and curricula that will give the state some of the nation’s highest education standard by 2011. Michigan this year became one of only three states in the nation requiring nearly all-11th graders to take the ACT, which boosted the number of students taking the test by more than 40 percent.

The U-M School of Education’s many Detroit related activities include efforts to put Education students into teaching roles with the Detroit Public Schools as well as the Highly Interactive Classrooms/Curricula/Computing in Education, known as the Hi- Ce program. For more than 10 years, this research group has conducted curricular design experiments and explored facets of science, social studies, and literacy education reform in collaboration with Detroit middle school teachers and administrators. For more details, visit: www.hi-ce.org

More than 2,000 Detroit Public School students each year participate in BioKIDS, the University of Michigan School of Education and Museum of Zoology program that uses technology and hands-on learning methods to help middle school students ask questions the way scientists do.

The National Science Foundation has awarded $11 million in grants for researchers at U-M, MSU, Northwestern University and Project 2061 to take their efforts to reform elementary and middle school science education to the next level. The goal: Maintain U.S. competitiveness by re-tooling science education to keep kids interested in science and improving scientific literacy for all students with some winding up in vital science and technology careers. Building upon past success in Detroit and Chicago, the researchers now are aiming to take their model curriculum to other middle schools across the nation to sites including Washington, D.C. and Tucson, Ariz.

U-M School of Education Professor Ed Silver, who has been spearheading efforts to help displaced Pfizer employees earn education degrees, last fall received a $356,000 grant from Saginaw Valley State University to start a project entitled, “The Michigan Math and Science Partnership Teacher Leadership Network.”

REGIONAL AND COMMUNITY OUTREACH EFFORTS

MSU Extension offices and staff are in all 83 counties. Extension faculty on the MSU campus conduct research and translate research results into educational programs. Since its beginning, Michigan Extension has focused on bringing knowledge-based educational programs to the people of the state to improve their lives and communities. County-based staff members, in concert with on-campus faculty members, serve every county with programming focused on agriculture and natural resources; children, youth and families; and community and economic.

AKTL (Advancing Knowledge Transforming Lives) Networks have been created in major geographic areas across Michigan - Detroit, Flint, Grand Rapids, Lansing, and the Upper Peninsula. These networks bring together faculty and staff who collaborate with community agencies, organizations, schools, public institutions, and businesses. Their purpose is to enhance communication among MSU scholars who do work in the same geographic area and to encourage multidisciplinary work.

Detroit: Both U-M and MSU have established Detroit-based research and outreach efforts for the hundreds of outreach and research projects they have underway in Michigan’s largest cities. Their locations, close to the Wayne State campus, further aid the ability to collaborate.

The U-M School of Public Health runs 15-20 projects through the Detroit Community-Academic Urban Research Center. The school also runs several AmeriCorps projects including one on lead poisoning with the Greater Detroit Area Health Council, one with ACCESS (serving the Arab American population in Detroit and Dearborn), and one with the Detroit Hispanic Development Corporation. For more information, visit: www.sph.umich.edu/urc

Taubman College of Architecture + Urban Planning. Each year, a team of architecture students and expert guest designers volunteer to put together the Detroit Design Charrette. The assembled teams work to come up with innovative designs and ideas for various areas of Detroit. The program also includes U-M students from disciplines as varied as the Stephen M. Ross School of Business, the U-M Law School and the School of Natural Resources and Environment. For more on the Charrette program, visit: www.tcaup.umich.edu/charrette

Western Michigan

Grand Rapids

MSU has made a high profile major impact on western Michigan with plans to build a new medical center named after Peter Secchia in the city’s growing medical district and plans to take over a 100,000 square foot lab from Pfizer in Holland.

Both U-M and MSU work with Van Andel Institute as part of the life sciences corridor partnerships.

On its own, U-M has been a part of a number of efforts to improve Grand Rapid

Other efforts include:

• The College of Engineering’s Michigan Interdisciplinary and Professional Engineering program which is helping major Grand Rapids employer Steelcase with lean manufacturing
• The U-M Health Management Research Center, which works with Steelcase, Spectrum Health System and Graves Insurance to study the links between employee behaviors and health costs.
• The U-M Dental School’s efforts to treat needy children and adults through Cherry Street Health Services, particularly the uninsured and under-insured.
• The U-M Law School’s Poverty Law Program has a Grand Rapids office where law students work with local service advocates.
• The U-M Business School has assisted a number of Grand Rapids area businesses, assessing growth potential while the College of Architecture and Urban Planning has conducted redevelopment and reuse studies.

Traverse City

U-M and MSU students and faculty experts teamed up to help Traverse City transform its downtown waterfront bring experts from a wide array of disciplines to re-design a major portion of the downtown where an obsolete power plant was being removed.

Mid-Michigan

Michigan is the country’s No. 1 producer of black beans, the No. 2 producer of all dry beans and the No. 4 producer of sugar beets, and Michigan growers depend on bean and sugar beet production research through the Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station’s Saginaw Valley Beet and Bean Research Farm. On average, beans add more than $77 million to the state’s economy each year, and sugar beets add more than $110 million.

Great Lakes and beyond

Michigan Sea Grant is a joint program of U-M and MSU. It is part of the National Sea Grant College Program, a network of 30 university-based programs in coastal states across the country. Michigan Sea Grant currently funds research projects and educational activities related to the program’s strategic plan. Federal funds are matched with funds from state, tribal, business, and other sources to carry out scientific and educational programs as well as programs working with businesses and state agencies.

The Michigan Space Grant Consortium involves members from the URC institutions as well as regional universities like Saginaw Valley State University. The consortium fosters awareness of, education in, and research on space-related science and technology in Michigan. Its mission is to create, develop, and promote programs that support its vision and reflect NASA strategic interests, and encourage cooperation between academia, industry, state and local government in space-related science and technology.