Current News Releases
Feb. 25, 2008
Endowed chairs working: Universities are meeting financial pledges, report shows
Reprinted with permission from The State
By JAMES T. HAMMOND - jhammond@thestate.com
The three universities that have benefited from the state's endowed chairs program, aimed at recruiting top researchers and in turn spurring economic development, are living up to their financial commitment, officials say.
Data show USC, Clemson and the Medical University have matching pledges for 78 percent of the grants for endowed chairs approved by the Centers of Economic Excellence review board. They also have collected 47 percent of the pledged money required by state law.
The three research institutions have five years to find matching money. However, millions of dollars already have flowed into the state because of the program, supporters say.
So far, the three institutions have drawn down $58.2 million in state money. More than $112 million of matching money also has been pledged. And $68 million of the pledged matching money has been received, according to the Commission on Higher Education, which keeps track of the program funds.
The Centers of Economic Excellence program is due to expire when $200 million is appropriated or by 2010, whichever comes first. But the three research universities have joined with House Speaker Bobby Harrell and others to propose lifting those limits.
A House bill to do just that is now before the state Senate.
Removing the cap would allow additional future spending on the program, which aims to spur economic development in the state by high-tech academic researchers linked to corporate partners.
State funding of the program, however, has been met with some criticism, particularly from Gov. Mark Sanford.
Sanford says the program has been abused. Harrell maintains it is too important to the state's future to allow it to end.
Just one grant coming with a newly recruited scientist will almost equal the annual $30 million appropriation by the General Assembly, said John Raymond, provost and vice president for academic affairs at the Medical University of South Carolina.
Marc Chimowitz of Emory University in Atlanta is moving to the Neuroscience Center at MUSC in Charleston, Raymond said. He will arrive March 1 with a newly awarded $28.5 million National Institutes of Health grant to optimize stroke treatment. His appointment as a Centers of Economic Excellence chair will be taken up at the next review board meeting, Raymond said.
(The "chair" is the senior scientist appointed to head a research team. The endowment for the chair is typically $2 million to $5 million in state money, matched by a similar amount of private or federal money.)
Already working in the MUSC Neuroscience Center is Gary Aston-Jones, who arrived in 2006. He has five active grants with total external funding of $2.9 million, Raymond said.
Aston-Jones works on cognitive function, neuro-degeneration and addiction. His program pays for 14 new jobs directly from external grants that don't include any state match or private match.
Raymond said Centers of Economic Excellence is the best investment the state can make.
"It yields an immediate 100 percent return on investment in terms of private and federal matching dollars before a single dollar of state match can be drawn down by the universities," Raymond said.
"More importantly, the program gives our state a sustaining return on investment by bringing in new dollars through competitive federal and foundation grants, by creating new jobs that would not otherwise exist here, and by transforming ideas into new educational programs, marketable products, and new companies that will benefit the entire state."
Sanford has criticized "an open-ended commitment to the Endowed Chairs program, by eliminating the $200 million cap and passing on the opportunity to reform the requirements for drawing down those state dollars. Over the next five years, it means an additional $150 million will go into the program without first reforming it."
He urged the House to reject the change, but earlier this month the House approved Harrell's proposal to keep the program alive, by a 107-0 vote.
Sanford cited a Clemson deal in Charleston in which the university used land once owned by the state as a match for state construction money. But that money came from the Research University Infrastructure Act, a separate law--with different rules--from the Centers of Economic Excellence law that was being debated in the House, according to Paula Harper Bethea, who chairs the centers review board.
Since the endowed chairs program began in 2002, lawmakers have appropriated $180 million of lottery profits to the three research universities to foster research and economic development.
The program is built on big science, attracting researchers seeking to develop alternative fuels, cure cancer, prevent strokes and heal stroke victims, and build better, more efficient cars.
The researchers typically support their work with grants from federal and corporate sources, and bring with them teams of collaborators who also may be paid by outside grants. The teams boost the economy with their personal spending, but also create startup companies that grow and employ other people, advocates say.
Since 2002, the Centers of Economic Excellence review board has approved proposals for endowed chairs totaling $144 million. The institutions have met their pledge deadlines on 24 projects and received extensions of time on the other four.
So far, 15 scientists have accepted endowed chair positions in South Carolina because of the program. Officials estimate the $180 million appropriated one day could support as many as 50 chairs.
One academic research star at USC is Kenneth Reifsnider, who left the University of Connecticut and a fuel cell research center directorship. He said it was South Carolina's commitment to research and the collection of scientific brains at USC that attracted him. He is bringing with him research contracts with chemical giant BASF.
Harris Pastides, USC's vice president for research and health sciences, told the House Ways and Means Committee that Reifsnider and others of his stature would not be here without the endowed chairs program.
