Science Alliance Annual Report

Plans for Fiscal Years 2010—2012

The Science Alliance Enters a Period of Transition

In 2005, Tennessee’s new Governor’s Chair Program began to change the course of the Science Alliance UT-ORNL partnership-building agenda. Prior to this time, the UT-ORNL Distinguished Scientist Program had been the focal point for the center. Following a transformational strategy, the Governor’s Chair Program, under the guidance of the UT Office of the Executive Vice President, was charged with recruiting high-profile appointments to joint UT-ORNL appointments; this gave the Science Alliance the opportunity to explore other avenues for UT-ORNL support. The UT-ORNL Joint Directed Research and Development Program was the first of these. Beginning in earnest in 2006, JDRD research now supports 15 to 16 projects each year.

Our success increased in FY07 and FY08. The Science Alliance provided institutional funding for two approximately $1.2 million Integrative Graduate and Research Traineeship (IGERT) proposals. NSF funding for each began in July and August of 2008. The Science Alliance has plans to maintain this momentum, offering short-term, “encouragement” funds in such strategic areas as sustainable energy—including bioenergy—computational sciences, and materials sciences.

Today, again, we have the opportunity to refocus—to apply our resources to help the university crest the next hill. The hard work to establish joint programs must be transformed into measures that will get the most out of joint appointments and institutes and our UT-Battelle connections.

Science Alliance support for UT-ORNL joint institutes, long on the center’s research agenda, is less important as the institutes acquire their own funding from competitive resources. On their way to becoming independent, the joint institutes have established resources in computational sciences, advanced materials, neutron sciences, biological sciences, and nuclear physics. In 2008, the Joint Institute for Computational Sciences received the first installment of the $65 million NSF award to build and operate a petascale computing system in the National Institute for Computational Sciences. The Joint Institute for Neutron Sciences under the leadership of Distinguished Scientist Takeshi Egami also received a $1.9 million DOE EPSCoR award to build a collaborative research network.

With this and other funding on its way, the Science Alliance will phase out joint institute support to focus on current needs, most especially on 1) expanding the UTK-ORNL research base by increasing competitive external grants and contracts; and 2) stimulating the growth of jointly operated UTK-ORNL graduate education programs, such as the UT-ORNL Graduate School of Genome Science and Technology. Expansion of graduate programs of this type will be most beneficial to both institutions at this point in the UT-Battelle partnership.

Grant and contract support

In FY08 the center began contributing institutional funding and preoposal-development assistance for large interdisciplinary-team research projects. In FY09, Science Alliance proposal development and grant writing teams provided support for grant applications valued at nearly $130 million. Particularly noteworthy is the center’s leadership role in the State of Tennessee’s Recovery Act Management Team (TRAM) in connection with the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP). As a representative of UT, Tennessee’s land grant university, the Science Alliance worked with ORNL, multiple state agencies, and private-public partnerships for six months to prepare a package of proposals for extending affordable broadband to the large rural areas of the state.

Graduate education

Graduate research and education is another important part of the center’s outreach. At this point, however, it is time to change the formula for distributing Science Alliance funds, making it more competitive. In the future the Science Alliance will establish a program that focuses graduate support on strategic themes at the university and ORNL.

The Science Alliance has an exceptional record of success bringing senior leadership, increased external funding, strategic new research, and remarkable graduate and postdoctoral research to UT and ORNL. As a proven Tennessee investment the Science Alliance should be funded to the greatest extent possible. New income will be used to target and encourage research in strategic areas important to Tennessee and the nation.