University research focus of summit

University
research focus of summit
…………………………………………………………………

Research at
Rice and five other Texas universities was the focus of
the second annual Texas Higher Education Summit April 5
in Washington, D.C.

Rice President
Malcolm Gillis addressed the summit, which was hosted by
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and attended by Sen. Phil Gramm.
Along with two members of the Bush cabinet, high level officials
from the Department of Energy, Department of Education,
Department of Defense, National Aeronautics and Space Administration,
National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation
also participated in the two-hour session. The purpose of
the event was to highlight the research of leading universities
in Texas and to better position them for support from key
federal agencies.

“Sen. Gramm,
who was present the entire meeting, and Sen. Hutchison,
who organized it, are very enthusiastic and effective advocates
for Rice and our sister institutions, especially with regard
to the support of research,” Gillis said.

Other Texas
universities represented at the meeting included the University
of Texas System, the Texas A&M System, Texas Tech University
System, Baylor College of Medicine and the University of
Houston.

The meeting
focused on science and engineering research. Nevertheless,
the senators made it clear that they were interested in
facilitating leading-edge research in all areas, including
social sciences, humanities and business management.

The two cabinet
secretaries present were Rod Paige, secretary of education,
and Spencer Abraham, secretary of energy. Paige, for one,
commended Rice for its more than 60 programs of outreach
to K-12 public education.

Paige was not
alone in recognizing Rice’s research. Dan Goldin, administrator
of NASA, opened his remarks by citing NASA’s joint
work with Rice. Joe Burdogna, deputy director of the National
Science Foundation, outlined NSF support for both nanoscale
science and information technology at Rice. Richard Klausner,
director of the National Cancer Institute, spoke of National
Institutes of Health efforts across a number of universities,
but mentioned in particular the work at Rice on nanoscale
science and nanotechnology.

Each university’s
chief executive had an opportunity to discuss the research
at his institution. Gillis focused on Rice’s “Info-Bio-Nano-Enviro”
research strategy, referring to information and computational
technology, biotechnology, nanotech-nology and environmental
and energy technology. He emphasized the interdisciplinary
and interinstitutional nature of Rice’s research, mentioning
the university’s 70 collaborative projects with Texas
Medical Center institutions.

“Our relatively
small size requires that we place a very high premium on
carefully selected objectives and interinstitutional collaboration,”
he said.

The closing
theme of the summit was grounded in the benefits of interuniversity
collaboration on research among Texas universities, with
the presidents or chancellors from all of these institutions
voicing strong support for collaborative research efforts
across many fields.

As a result
of this meeting, Gillis and Ken Kennedy, the Ann and John
Doerr Professor in Computational Engineering and professor
in electrical and computer engineering, soon will return
to Washington to discuss support of high-performance computing
with officials of the Department of Energy in meetings arranged
by Abraham.