When Calient Networks Inc. of San Jose, Calif., announced two weeks ago that it was acquiring Kionix Inc. of Lansing, N.Y., the deal was not only a victory for researchers who had poured years of work into the development of microscopic mechanical switches. It also was a major payoff for Cornell's substantial efforts to exploit the fruits of the university's research.
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| Steve Harvey, project manager for the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, left, shows Walter De Jong, assistant professor of plant breeding, blueprints for a refurbished laboratory. Harvey has just completed renovating office and laboratory space in Bradfield Hall for De Jong's lab, which was carefully designed and tailored for the scientist's research needs. Matthew Fondeur/University Photography |
Seven years ago, Cornell Research Foundation (CRF), the university arm charged with transferring Cornell technology to the public sector, began talking with Greg Galvin, formerly deputy director of the Cornell Nanofabrication Facility. In 1993 Galvin formed a startup company to develop tiny micro-electromechanical (MEMS) devices with an exclusive license from CRF. Over the years, Cornell has added other patents to Kionix's portfolio.
Now Cornell will be receiving a handsome payoff from the sale to Calient, based on CRF having opted early on to take an equity position in Kionix.
"It takes a significant commitment on the part of the university to run an office like ours," said James Severson, president of CRF. "And it will take a significant amount of income to make the commitment pay off."
Indeed, that statement typifies the Cornell administration's farsighted approach to research (whether it be microscopic electronic devices, new drug-delivery systems, DNA chips or biosensors): make research pay off for the benefit of society and financially for the benefit of the university. Cornell-developed technology, said Robert Richardson, vice provost for research, "should not sit on the shelf, but should be developed for the public good and, in the process, should profit the university and involve education, both at the graduate and the undergraduate level, the advancement of basic knowledge and the furthering of faculty research careers."
In the 1999-2000 fiscal year the university spent $396 million on scientific research (which included $114 million for Weill Cornell Medical College). Of this, more than 60 percent came from federal sources, such as the National Science Foundation and the Department of Health and Human Services, and 24 percent from non-federal sources, including foundations and the state of New York. But Cornell, through the support of donors, funded the balance of 16 percent, or $58 million.
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According to a congressionally mandated study released this summer by the Rand Corp., research universities are picking up between $700 million and $1.5 billion of the overhead costs for the $15 billion in federal research contracts they get each year. "Cornell is paying out more and more for research, even though the federal government is a major funding source for research here," said Kraig Adler, vice provost for life sciences. The question is, Adler said, where should this growing portion of university research costs not funded by Washington come from?
Tuition is frowned on as a source, particularly by parents, even though undergraduate research is becoming increasingly common on campus. That forces the administration to rely on internal funds, such as college funds and endowments, and on donations, largely from alumni. Most of this alumni support goes to cover new faculty appointments and to provide startup money for researchers, said Inge Reichenbach, vice president for alumni affairs and development.
The primary source of this gift money are two academic initiatives funds, the first of which was launched in 1996 with an $8 million gift. The second fund was initiated this year with a gift of $22 million. An additional $80 million has been given (and a further $80 million is being sought) to support a collaborative program between Cornell and its Weill Medical College and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and The Rockefeller University in New York City.
The bottom line, however, said Adler, is: "We have to say 'no' a lot because there simply isn't enough money to cover all good ideas. We have to give less than is asked for, which hampers the research operation."
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| The new $3 million G-Line Facility building at the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source (CHESS), which is being funded by unrestricted gifts to the university, typifies the Cornell administration's farsighted approach to research. At the new facility last week, staff scientist Qun Shen, right, described the working of his reference beam diffractometer to, from left, Sol Gruner, director of CHESS; Provost Biddy Martin; Kraig Adler, vice provost for life sciences; and John Silcox, vice provost for physical sciences and engineering. The diffractometer allows highly precise positioning of crystals in the X-ray beams. Nicola Kountoupes/University Photography |
The future of scientific research at Cornell will largely be guided by two forces, said Bruce Ganem, the Franz and Elizabeth Roessler Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology and a leader in collaborative research at Cornell. "Those are the external discovery of new fields, where we become players through new faculty hires, and the internally generated new directions, which Cornell must nurture in some way. Both efforts involve dollars."
So what part of this huge Cornell research machine does the university have to fund? Basically it can be broken down into researchers and laboratories, bricks and mortar, and technology transfer.
Over the two years 1999 and 2000, 31 new tenure-track appointments were made in chemistry and chemical biology, ecology, molecular biology and genetics, neurobiology and behavior, physics, computer science, electrical engineering, materials science, mechanical and aerospace engineering, theoretical and applied math, microbiology, plant breeding and pathology, biomedical science and molecular medicine.
For 2000 through 2004, said Carolyn Ainslie, vice president for financial planning and budget management, the university has committed about $35 million in salary and operating support for new faculty in these areas (see accompanying chart). In addition, roughly one third of that amount is being invested in these new researchers by their colleges.
Bidding for potential academic stars is highly competitive, a fact illustrated by a number of recent faculty hires who have received gift money and college funds for bridging salaries (i.e. salaries and benefits, sometimes for several years, until budgeted payroll funds become available, and for staff costs before federal funding is received), laboratories and equipment. One physicist hired as an associate professor a year ago drew more than $1 million from an academic initiatives fund plus additional funds from the College of Arts and Sciences. And several negotiations are under way to bring researchers in the field of genomics to Cornell, each at a cost of more than $1 million.
The belief that all new researchers come to Cornell with a clutch of federal research contracts is far from reality. Many new faculty hires are post-doctoral researchers coming to their first faculty job. That means they come without any research funding from government or foundations and depend on the university to set up their first laboratory and hire support staff.
"We do the heavy lifting. We make the investment in new faculty," said Adler. "We spend this startup money to get the laboratory set up and to hire personnel for the first year or two, giving the new faculty member time to get his or her grant submitted so they can get onto external funds. For those first two years, Cornell is carrying these costs."
And those costs have been rising sharply. Adler estimates that the hiring of a postdoctoral researcher as a tenure-track professor in scientific research typically costs about $300,000, and some hiring costs go over $1 million. "That was not an unusual figure for a full professor some years ago because that person would bring a staffed lab. But now we're talking about one person," said Adler.
Partly this increase is being driven, he said, by biological research. "Biologists used to be relatively inexpensive compared to physicists, whose equipment is a lot more expensive on the average. But that has changed dramatically as many biologists are using molecular techniques that require very expensive equipment."
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| To download a PDF version of this chart, click here |
Other major building projects under consideration are a $75 million renovation of Baker Laboratory and Olin Chemistry Research Lab to include the construction of new chemical biology laboratories, approximately $70 million for a Life Sciences Technology Building and new research facilities for physics and for the College of Veterinary Medicine. The Vet School continues to expand facilities, said Dean Donald Smith, to house its new research initiatives: the Cornell Comparative Cancer Program, advances in clinical medicine through the Cornell University Hospital for Animals, genomics and medical genetics, and bacterial and infectious disease prevention.
Over the past decade, CRF has taken an equity position in 22 startup companies and has received royalties of nearly $25 million from licensing agreements. Of that amount, the foundation has retained $5.6 million to fund its operation and distributed $11.2 million to the university (including the colleges and departments involved) and $7.4 million to the inventors. In return, the university provides a loan of $10 million to support CRF's deficit.
To seek out potentially profitable technology, CRF employs eight case managers, six on the Ithaca campus and two at the Weill Cornell Medical College.
"Technology transfer is a business of champions," CRF's Severson said. "Universities with significant income from licensing usually have had just one or two big hits. We think that Cornell's big opportunities lie in the areas of nanobiotechnology, materials science, genomics, software and information technology, veterinary medicine and human health care. Our technology is fantastic and the quality of our science is very high."
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