C. Peter Magrath: Energy research improves lives, economy in our state
As West Virginia University and Marshall fans support their football teams in this year's Friends of Coal Bowl in Morgantown, our universities are united in believing that research improves the lives of West Virginians.
As West Virginia University and Marshall fans support their football teams in this year's Friends of Coal Bowl in Morgantown, our universities are united in believing that research improves the lives of West Virginians.
Across the country, states are investing hundreds of millions of dollars in their research to make their state economies competitive in the 21st century and to help our nation maintain its leadership in innovation and technology. It is essential that West Virginia, which ranks 50th in the U.S. for creating and retaining high wage jobs, moves fast to take a leading part in the knowledge revolution.
Energy research, in particular, has never been more important to our nation's future. We face shrinking oil and natural gas reserves, skyrocketing worldwide energy demands, and intense concern about the environmental implications of burning fossil fuels.
Energy research is a natural fit for WVU. With the historic importance of energy to our state, we are ready and eager to help our nation find solutions. WVU is aggressively pursuing an interdisciplinary strategy that will place it among the ranks of eminent public research universities engaged in developing environmentally and socially responsible ways to produce and use energy.
WVU has developed an Advanced Energy Initiative. Its mission is to support faculty research on fossil energy, sustainable energy and energy policy; to encourage new interdisciplinary projects in these areas; and to help faculty researchers attract more funding for their projects.
The initiative sets strategic fundraising goals for WVU energy research and envisions that by 2012 we will attract $59 million in energy research in addition to the average $23 million that we already receive annually for established energy research programs.
WVU has also joined a consortium with Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh to perform up to $26 million worth of research into developing clean and efficient technologies for the use of fossil fuels.
Energy is a significant focus but only a part of WVU's total research enterprise, which has wide-ranging benefits for our students and our state.
As West Virginia University and Marshall fans support their football teams in this year's Friends of Coal Bowl in Morgantown, our universities are united in believing that research improves the lives of West Virginians.
Across the country, states are investing hundreds of millions of dollars in their research to make their state economies competitive in the 21st century and to help our nation maintain its leadership in innovation and technology. It is essential that West Virginia, which ranks 50th in the U.S. for creating and retaining high wage jobs, moves fast to take a leading part in the knowledge revolution.
Energy research, in particular, has never been more important to our nation's future. We face shrinking oil and natural gas reserves, skyrocketing worldwide energy demands, and intense concern about the environmental implications of burning fossil fuels.
Energy research is a natural fit for WVU. With the historic importance of energy to our state, we are ready and eager to help our nation find solutions. WVU is aggressively pursuing an interdisciplinary strategy that will place it among the ranks of eminent public research universities engaged in developing environmentally and socially responsible ways to produce and use energy.
WVU has developed an Advanced Energy Initiative. Its mission is to support faculty research on fossil energy, sustainable energy and energy policy; to encourage new interdisciplinary projects in these areas; and to help faculty researchers attract more funding for their projects.
The initiative sets strategic fundraising goals for WVU energy research and envisions that by 2012 we will attract $59 million in energy research in addition to the average $23 million that we already receive annually for established energy research programs.
WVU has also joined a consortium with Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh to perform up to $26 million worth of research into developing clean and efficient technologies for the use of fossil fuels.
Energy is a significant focus but only a part of WVU's total research enterprise, which has wide-ranging benefits for our students and our state.
Our research program helps the university fulfill every part of its mission as a land-grant university. Students work side-by-side in the laboratories of the top faculty leaders at WVU and emerge prepared for the career challenges of the 21st century.
The people of West Virginia benefit directly - and immediately. WVU research creates jobs, attracts businesses, increases the tax base and improves health care and education. A 2007 study by the WVU Bureau of Business Research shows that every dollar the state invests in WVU generates $19 in the state economy.
Our state government recognizes the importance of that investment. Last year, Governor Joe Manchin introduced and lawmakers passed legislation to create a Research Trust Fund. WVU will receive 70 percent of the fund's initial $50 million appropriation, but we must earn the right to do so by raising a dollar in private support for each dollar we receive from the fund. Marshall University also participates in this opportunity to serve West Virginia with 30 percent of the fund's appropriation.
The Research Trust Fund will unite public and private funds to make West Virginia's economy more vibrant and create new opportunities for highly skilled and educated workers.
WVU is focusing its Research Trust Fund dollars on areas that are important to our state and nation's future - energy and environmental sciences; nanotechnology and materials science; biological, biotechnological and biomedical sciences; biometrics, security, sensing and related information technologies.
I am convinced that the Research Trust Fund will have a substantial impact on the state for decades to come, and that it will create a more prosperous future for West Virginians.
That's something we can all cheer about.
Magrath is interim president of West Virginia University.
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WVU endorsed and encouraged placing the student body of the Leonard C. Nelson College of Engineering (Tech in Montgomery)at Dow in 2006, but refused placing the WVU student body on the same site in 2008.