June 24, 2009

CORVALLIS - Oregon State University faculty, working in all corners of the state and beyond, attracted a record $208.9 million in externally funded research during the 2004-05 fiscal year that ended July 1.

Fueled by a number of grants from federal agencies and private foundations, OSU's research positively affects nearly every segment of the Oregon economy - as well as every county in the state.

The previous record of $177 million was set last year.

"For a university this size, without a medical school, $208 million is a phenomenal figure," said OSU President Ed Ray. "It speaks to the productivity and talent of the faculty, and their ability to compete nationally to undertake research that addresses the needs of Oregonians and the nation.

"One of our goals is to increasingly make significant contributions to the economic and social benefit of Oregonians and citizens throughout the United States," Ray added. "This suggests that we're on the right track."

It is difficult to pinpoint the specific impact higher education research has on the economy. In addition to the local economic multiplier effect - the number of times a dollar is spent and re-spent in the local community - research has a greater impact on the state economy than many other investments because of the new technologies and jobs that spin off from faculty productivity.

Because of its broad spectrum of programs, OSU research cuts across nearly every Oregon economic sector, contributing to agriculture, forestry, high tech, health care and other industries. In addition to creating new economic opportunities, the university's research often helps prevent costly problems. OSU researchers, for example, recently developed a new strain of filbert tree that is resistant to eastern filbert blight, which threatened to devastate the state's $30 million industry.

Multiplier effects on the economy, estimated by universities around the country, range from doubling every dollar invested to as high as 10 times per dollar.

"If you put the true impact somewhere in the middle, Oregon State University's research enterprise would have had an impact of $1 billion on the Oregon economy last year," said John M. Cassady, OSU's vice president for research.

The social impact of OSU's research also is significant, according to the university's provost, Sabah Randhawa.

The university has numerous faculty conducting research to boost K-12 and community college education, improve disease prevention, enhance the livability of rural communities, understand and protect the environment, and help Oregon prepare for a population that is aging and becoming more ethnically and culturally diverse, he pointed out.

"Our impact on the social fabric of Oregon is every bit as important as it is on the economic sector," Randhawa said.

During the 2004-05 fiscal year, OSU brought in $208,975,584 in externally funded research. The largest slice of that total, $134.4 million, came from federal agencies, led by the National Science Foundation ($34.1 million); the U.S. Department of Agriculture ($19.6 million); the Department of Health and Human Services ($17.8 million); and the Department of Defense ($14.3 million).

Private foundations also are playing a more important role in OSU research funding and grants totaling $24.5 million to the OSU-led Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans, or PISCO, helped boost the university's total over the $200 million plateau. Noted OSU zoologist Jane Lubchenco is one of the principal investigators for the ambitious PISCO project, which seeks to gain new understanding of the nearshore ocean ecosystem along the west coast of the United States. OSU is the lead institution in the partnership with Stanford University, University of California-Santa Cruz, and University of California-Santa Barbara. Grants to fund the program over the next five years were provided by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation ($11 million) and the G&B Moore Foundation ($13.5 million).

"In the university's strategic plan, one of the goals was to increase annual research funding from $137 million in 2002 to more than $171 million by 2007-08," Cassady said. "We will have to revise that goal upward a bit."

This is the second consecutive year Oregon State University has set a new research record. Historically, OSU has generated more research income that all of the rest of the Oregon University System institutions combined.

Here are just a few of the research grants that came into Oregon State during the fiscal year that emphasize the diversity of the university's research enterprise and funding sources:

  • The National Science Foundation awarded $4.5 million grant to OSU to operate the Tsunami Wave Basin at the university's O.H. Hinsdale Wave Research Laboratory through 2009. In the aftermath of last December's devastating Indian Ocean tsunami, the university's research on tsunamis was featured internationally in Europe, Asia and throughout North America. OSU has the largest tsunami research facility in the world.
  • Larry Rosenkoetter, a psychology professor in OSU's College of Liberal Arts, is studying the impact of television and video game violence on children's behavior with funding through a grant of $730,571 from the U.S. Department of Education. The study expands on his previous work in creating intervention programs at public schools to include parent and teacher education components.
  • Emily Ho, one of a growing number of OSU researchers focusing on disease prevention, received a $260,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for her study on the impacts of zinc deficiency. An assistant professor of nutrition and exercise sciences, Ho is investigating whether the lack of zinc in human diets can damage DNA.
  • Kaichang Li, an associate professor in the College of Forestry, received a small grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to study how mussels attach themselves to rocks and from that research developed a new group of adhesives that have resulted in three patents and commercial partnerships with Columbia Forest Products and Hercules, Inc. These adhesives have the potential to revolutionize a large portion of the wood products industry and they have important environmental and economic benefits.
    • Source: 

    John Cassady, 541-737-0662

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