Current News Releases
July 10, 2007
New Centers of Economic Excellence approved
The review board that oversees the state’s endowed chairs for research has voted to fund five new Centers of Economic Excellence (CoEE), including three at the University of South Carolina.
One of the three involves joint research between the university and the Medical University of South Carolina.
The CoEE Program encourages the state’s three research universities to create Centers of Economic Excellence, along with associated endowed professorships, in high-technology areas likely to enhance the state’s economy.
The centers approved for the University of South Carolina include $5 million for rehabilitation and reconstructive sciences and $5 million for a center to address strategic environmental approaches to electricity production from coal.
The rehabilitative center will focus on research in tissue-engineered materials and implantable devices to help the thousands of people who suffer from orthopedic maladies each year. Research and clinical activities will focus on new materials to optimize rehabilitation and reconstruction of damaged joints and other injuries.
The CoEE will be led by an endowed professorship in reconstructive methodologies and materials. The university has partnered with Smith & Nephew, a medical-devices company based in London, and Steadman-Hawkins, a provider of clinic-based orthopedic care in the Upstate.
The panel said a CoEE focused on orthopedic research complements several of the university’s strengths, including its nationally prominent exercise-science and bioengineering programs.
The coal-production CoEE will focus on research to reduce the harmful environmental effects of burning coal to produce electricity and is considered another step toward making the University of South Carolina an international leader in future fuels/energy research.
The university’s partners in this CoEE include Santee Cooper and the Electric Cooperatives of South Carolina, which have pledged $5 million.
A third center was approved for the University of South Carolina and MUSC to collaborate on research aimed at strengthening clinical and basic stroke research in the state. The funding will provide for a faculty appointment at the Columbia campus for stroke research.
Partners in the CoEE include Greenville Health System and the Greenwood Genetics Center. Greenville Health System has begun constructing the Research and Education Innovation Institute, a $20 million facility that will house academic programs in patient safety and clinical effectiveness, pharmacy, medicine and dental medicine. Greenwood Genetics Center will participate in research programs associated with the genetics of stroke.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, South Carolina has the second-highest stroke mortality rate in the nation.
Other centers approved were one between Clemson and MUSC on health-facilities design and testing and a center at MUSC for studying tobacco-related malignancies.
To receive funding for a CoEE, the research universities submit proposals that undergo a three-tier review process. Three separate reviews are conducted by a panel of field experts, a panel of senior research officials from Association of American University institutions and the CoEE Review Board.
The S.C. Centers of Economic Excellence Program was established by the South Carolina General Assembly in 2002, with $200 million appropriated from the South Carolina Education Lottery Account to fund the program through 2010. The legislation authorizes the state’s three public research institutions (Clemson, MUSC and the University of South Carolina) to use state funds to create Centers of Economic Excellence in research areas that will advance South Carolina’s economy. Each Center of Economic Excellence is awarded between $2 million and $5 million in state funds, which must be matched on a dollar-for-dollar basis with federal, private or municipal funds.
The program also supports CoEE endowed chairs, world-renowned scientists who lead the Centers of Economic Excellence. By investing in talent and technology, the CoEE Program is designed to help fuel the state’s knowledge economy, resulting in higher-paying jobs and an improved standard of living in South Carolina.
