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Legislators Meddle With University Research Fund

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By ADAM EMERSON

The Tampa Tribune

Published: April 30, 2008

Updated: 04/30/2008 12:17 am

Leading university professors in the state hoped lawmakers would keep their hands off a pot of money reserved for research centers promising economic growth. Now, that hope is gone.

House and Senate leaders agreed to raid every dollar of the $87 million set aside for "Centers of Excellence."

The bulk of the money would bankroll a project at five Florida universities to develop innovative energy sources and policies. That project, however, received lower marks from a group of scientists and economists the state paid to rate 41 proposed research centers on their merit.

Most of the projects the same group of experts lauded for their scientific potential and promise of high-paying jobs would get nothing.

"What is even more troubling is that we have industrial partners who have committed to work with us on these," said Pritish Mukherjee, a University of South Florida physics professor and lead scientist in a project that missed out on $11 million in funding. "I doubt they'd want to spend the time and energy on endeavors like these in the future."

This year, the university system's Board of Governors designed the funding process to be free of politics. It paid experts from Oak Ridge Associated Universities $200,000 in state money to isolate the projects with the most potential for economic growth.

The Board of Governors' own panel then suggested dividing the $87 million among the top seven proposals. Two USF projects made the list with $11 million each: Mukherjee's and a second aimed at the creation, and eventual marketing, of technologies in security, health care, environmental monitoring and entertainment.

House and Senate leaders went their own way, but did take $25 million to fund the top two research proposals: a center at Florida International University in Miami to study how to reduce hurricane damage and a project at Florida State University to develop aerospace research and training.

But they also agreed to pay $8.5 million toward a solar field installation at Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers, a project never proposed as a Center of Excellence.

The energy consortium includes money for five universities: $15 million for the University of Florida and $8.75 million for FSU, USF, the University of Central Florida and Florida Atlantic University.

The plan calls for efficient energy uses in the state, and focuses research on innovative and alternative energy systems.

Critics don't discount the focus toward efficient energy plans, but they condemn redirecting money to a project their peers found deficient.

Disregarding such a review, Mukherjee wrote to Gov. Charlie Crist and top lawmakers recently, "will have the unintended consequence of portraying our state's commitment to excellence in research and innovation, and national stature in higher education, in an unfavorable light."

Bill Edmonds, spokesman for the Board of Governors, said the Legislature still will spend the money on university research. "It's hard to look at any of this as pork-barrel spending," he said.

Reporter Adam Emerson can be reached at (813) 259-8285 or aemerson@tampatrib.com.

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