TPP

STATE URGED TO BUILD STRATEGIC ALLIANCES TO BUILD R&D FUNDS
By Robert Weisman, Globe staff

07/22/2004
Boston Globe

Massachusetts must cobble together "strategic alliances" of businesses, academic institutions, teaching hospitals, and state government to grab a greater share of more than a hundred billion dollars in federal research and development grants distributed each year, according to a report scheduled to be released this morning by the policy group Mass Insight Corp. and the Battelle research organization.

The report says Massachusetts, unlike such competing research-oriented states as California, North Carolina, New York, and Pennsylvania, "has yet to make the conscious determination to adopt this new model" of technology collaboration favored by federal agencies that dole out the grants. As a result, it says, the share of U.S. research and development money going to Massachusetts has been declining.

The document, called the Massachusetts Technology Road Map and Strategic Alliances Study, lists nine fields it said are ripe for potential consortiums that can more effectively vie for research dollars from the Pentagon, the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and other federal agencies: nanoscale device fabrication, smart materials, neurosciences signal pathways, biogrid infrastructure, sensing and sensor networks, X-ray lasers and imaging, emergency response and command-and-control systems, industrial biotechnology and clean technologies, and ocean exploration.

Up for grabs is the $132 billion proposed for research and development in President Bush's fiscal 2005 budget, along with an even greater sum to be allocated for industrial research by companies such as IBM Corp., General Electric Co., and Microsoft Corp., portions of which are invested in academic research projects. Research and development represents 4.5 percent of Massachusetts economic output, nearly twice as high as the national figure, the report said. But the state saw its share of US research dollars dip to 5.5 percent in 2001, the most recent year for which data was published, from 6.9 percent in 1985.

The report, based on interviews with dozens of companies and institutions, was the second part of a $400,000 study produced by Battelle's technology partnership practice.

The initiative was underwritten by the Boston Foundation, the University of Massachusetts, the Massachusetts High-Tech Council, the Associated Industries of Massachusetts, Raytheon Co., and Partners HealthCare System Inc.

"What we've heard consistently is we're not connecting the dots," said William Guenther, chief executive of Mass Insight. "We have isolated centers of excellence, but we're not putting it all together."

Compared to many other states, Massachusetts has been slow to break down a historic turf mentality in the face of changing trends in technology innovation, state business leaders said. The new trends include a rise in "open innovation," in which companies strike research partnerships with one another and with university labs, and technology convergence across disciplines such as computer and life sciences.

"One thing that's clear is the federal funding agencies expect collaboration between institutions for new technology initiatives," said John A. Armstrong, a retired IBM vice president for science and technology who chaired the executive oversight panel for the technology road map. "These technology fields are complicated enough that you need multiple types of expertise and expensive instrumentation and infrastructure beyond the reach of any one institution."

Because the state government has underinvested in its public university system, many technology-oriented Massachusetts students go to college in other states and never return, said Ray Stata, the chairman of Analog Devices Inc. in Norwood and advisory committee member for the study.

"In our public university system, we must have tier-one research capabilities," Stata said. "They have to attract the best and brightest faculty so they can attract the best and brightest students."

Business leaders cited some progress over the past year: Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology jointly convened a life sciences summit. State government invested $5 million in a one-time matching grant to help fund a $40 million engineering research center at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. And the Legislature approved a $100 million economic stimulus package that includes $45 million in matching grants for research collaborations.

While the state money "is a drop in the bucket compared to what other states are spending," Guenther said, the business coalition that sponsored the technology road map is already moving forward with four working groups to put together collaborations in the fields of nanoscale devices, neuroscience, ocean exploration, and integrated communications for emergency response and homeland security.

Prominently represented in these efforts are two military research centers, Hanscom Air Force Base in Bedford and the Army Soldier Systems Center in Natick, that are thought to be vulnerable to the Pentagon's upcoming round of base closings. Advocates for the bases say they are an integral part of the state's technology infrastructure.

Even as competition for federal research funds intensifies, Massachusetts business leaders fear government expenditures for research and development will be under growing pressure from the federal budget deficit and funding for the war in Iraq.

"Research activities dependent on federal funding are going to find it much more difficult than they have in years past," warned the advisory committee's vice chairman, William Terry, vice president of corporate-sponsored research and licensing for Partners HealthCare.

Robert Weisman can be reached at weisman@globe.com.