Plan sets course on 3 major research initiativesGreg Kline, The News Gazzete Available data isn't the problem, whether you're a scientist looking at reams of it from satellites, sensor arrays or genome maps, or a regular Joe trying to find something on the Web. "You get masses of measurements, Professor Marc Snir, head of the University of Illinois Computer Science Department, said Tuesday. "The problem is what can you learn from them?" The UI is aiming to help provide a solution with a new Illinois Informatics Initiative designed to make information technology more useful - especially in nontraditional areas such as the arts, humanities and social sciences - as well as a better tool in business and government decision making and a more secure and reliable tool overall. The UI's new strategic plan outlines three major research initiatives, including the informatics initiative, an Integrated Science for Health Initiative and an Illinois Sustainable Energy and Environment Initiative. UI Vice Chancellor for Research Charles Zukoski emphasized that the initiatives are areas where university leaders see opportunity, but aren't intended to supplant the array of existing research on campus in what is a nearly $300 million enterprise annually. "We value everybody," he said. The health initiative is supposed to more directly combine the UI's expertise in physical science and engineering with its expertise in fundamental life science - cell division, for instance, a key to cancer - to deliver new technologies and novel therapies for human health. That effort includes additional collaboration with Carle Foundation Hospital. The energy and environment initiative will focus on energy, water and land use and incorporate new techniques and technologies into the campus, making the UI something of a living laboratory and, perhaps, a model sustainable campus eventually, Zukoski said The basic question is how can we continue to grow and prosper without depleting the ecosystem that allows us to live on Earth, said UI Professor, William Sullivan, director of the university's Environmental Council. "The solutions that we generate could have worldwide impact," Sullivan said. The energy and environment initiative also is rife with economic development potential, Zukoski said, as the other initiatives would seem to be. The initiatives build off the UI's tradition of interdisciplinary research and research strengths it already has spread around campus in various schools and departments. For example, Snir noted the UI has nearly 200 researchers working on informatics-related projects in units as diverse at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications and the Graduate School of Library and Information Science. "There are a lot of assets and capabilities that the university has that really make this kind of unique place to start an initiative like this," NCSA Director Thom Dunning said. Besides outlining the reallocation of some campus money, the plan includes goals designed to help pay for the initiatives and to encourage "bold new programs" in the arts, humanities and social sciences, among other places. It calls for increasing the campus Critical Research Initiatives fund by a million dollars to get new projects off the ground. "It's the seed bed for future initiatives that might come around six years or eight years from now," Zukoski said. Moreover, the plan has the UI diversifying its research funding, weighted to the National Science Foundation now, by attracting more money from other federal agencies, such as the National Institues of Health and the Department of Energy. Another goal is to increase money from corporate sources, in part by linking some research activities to corporations' needs and also by marketing the UI's research activities to major corporate executives, as well as other decision makers and opinion leaders. "People don't know our brand," Zukoski said. "They don't know the quality of our programs. Not many people know, for whatever reason, that we won two Nobel prizes (in 2003)." The UI also will establish an as-yet-undefined "presence" in Washington, D.C., to assist faculty members in pitching their proposals, influence the thrust of federal research efforts and generate student internship opportunities. January 25, 2006 |