By Charles E. Kupchella
President of the University

The heart of a world-class zone for high-level research and commercialization could lie on both sides of the Red River of the North.

In the spring of 2003, Sen. Byron Dorgan proposed the establishment of a “Red River Valley Research Corridor” as a primary agent of economic development for all of North Dakota.

In its fullest realization, this Corridor would promote research opportunities, resource sharing, development and training among partners in education, business, industry, and government in North and South Dakota, Minnesota, and Manitoba.

The state’s two research universities — the University of North Dakota and North Dakota State University — will anchor the Corridor.

Besides UND and NDSU, the initial list of partners will include the North Dakota University System, the North Dakota Congressional delegation, the Governor’s Office, the Department of Commerce, the private sector through the Greater North Dakota Association and its New Economy Initiative, and local governments. Eventually, the list of partners will expand to include universities and government agencies in South Dakota, Minnesota, and Manitoba.

The overarching vision for the Corridor is to develop an ongoing forum for exchanging information and combining resources among the partners. The Corridor could support comprehensive education and training to assist business development and corporate expansion, and to foster the implementation of broadband telecommunications infrastructure in support of research and commercialization.

Although the emphasis of the Corridor will be on science and technology, and on applied research and development, strong basic research programs will be critical to its strength. Just as vital will be the broad range of academic programs among the partners, particularly the arts and humanities which contribute so strongly to the quality of life in the region.

UND and NDSU already share a background of collaboration through the longstanding EPSCoR (Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research) program.

The EPSCoR program is funded by a variety of federal agencies, including the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, and the Environmental Protection Agency. Matching funding of about $2 million a year is appropriated by the North Dakota Legislature to support EPSCoR initiatives. The National Science Foundation created EPSCoR to improve the competitiveness of states like North Dakota in seeking grant funding. For more than a decade, the program has proved to be quite successful for the state.

Structure and Function of the Research Corridor

As originally conceived, the Corridor would be governed by a Red River Valley Research Council, with the presidents of UND and NDSU serving as co-chairs. The council also would include the governor of North Dakota, the state’s Congressional delegation, the commissioner of the North Dakota Department of Commerce, the chancellor of the North Dakota University System, the chair of the Greater North Dakota Association, the chair of the Legislative Higher Education Roundtable, and the president of the State Board of Higher Education. It would meet once a year in conjunction with an annual showcase of science, technology, research, development, and commercialization (two such showcases have already been held).

Sen. Dorgan recently appointed a broadly based steering committee including some 30 individuals from throughout North Dakota’s educational and business/industry landscape. Yet to be established is a coordinating center, or office with an executive director. The coordinating center will support the continued development of the Corridor between quarterly meetings of the steering committee and annual meetings of the council.

Among the strategic actions to be undertaken will be the establishment of as many as six centers of research excellence each at UND and NDSU, and perhaps as many as four additional joint centers of excellence, two each of which would be headquartered at Fargo and Grand Forks. It is expected that a package of legislative proposals, at both the state and federal levels, will be developed in support of the “centers of excellence” concept as well as the overall goal of establishing the Red River Valley Research Corridor.
There will be an expanded program of support for faculty at other North Dakota colleges and universities to provide opportunities to work with the research university scientists and engineers and then to do follow-up work independently on their own campuses. Other programs would foster the participation of undergraduate students throughout the state in research programs.

Another part of the Corridor involving all of the state’s colleges and universities would be workforce development. As a well-trained workforce is critical to the success of businesses in the Corridor, an ongoing program of retraining and lifelong learning will be critical.

A further area of exploration will be expanding Corridor participation to the research universities in South Dakota and Manitoba. Some steps already have been taken to link UND programs with those at the University of Manitoba. A rich array of potential collaborations between the two institutions already has been identified.

The overall concept of the Red River Valley Research Corridor is that of creating interaction, support, and excellence among colleges, universities, government, and the private sector. Sen. Dorgan’s original idea was to develop an appropriate structure to maximize the impact of federal dollars through research, development, and commercialization. The idea is well on its way to being realized.

There are some who believe that “earmarking” — the practice of Congress directing research dollars to specific universities — is “academic pork barrel.”

Those critics argue that all of the federal government’s research dollars should be allocated on the basis of competitive bidding. In that process, researchers submit proposals, and the federal agencies, assisted by panels of experts, decide who gets what.

And indeed, the University of North Dakota has a long record of success in such open, peer-reviewed competition.

But others, including Sen. Byron Dorgan, who sits on the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, believe the nation benefits when Congress earmarks some of the research dollars. Congress directly appropriates about 8 percent of 19.2 billion of these dollars, according to the most current figures reported by the Chronicle of Higher Education.

A strictly competitive process, Dorgan argues, merely allows the rich to get richer, especially the handful of universities that now get the lion’s share of federal research dollars.

It is in the national interest, he says, for more of the nation’s brain power to be brought to bear on the big research issues, and earmarking makes that happen. Moreover, moving some research to other parts of the country can build centers of excellence that attract businesses and jobs. That was the origin of “Silicon Valley” in California, “Route 29” in Massachusetts, and “Silicon Alley” in New York.

The same could happen with the Red River Valley Research Corridor, he says.

“I am determined to continue trying to build the concept of a Research Corridor by steering cutting-edge research funding to our two major universities,” Dorgan wrote recently in an op-ed piece in the Grand Forks Herald, “and I want UND and NDSU to develop alliances with other colleges in our state whose faculty and students can benefit from and contribute to developing these centers that will become the magnets for new business and new jobs.”

So far, Dorgan’s persistence and that of his colleagues in Washington, Sen. Kent Conrad and Rep. Earl Pomeroy, is paying off. North Dakota, which ranks 47th in population, is ranked 24th in academic earmarks, according to the Chronicle, with $31.8 million directed to its colleges and universities.

Dimensions is published quarterly in September, December, March, and May by the University of North Dakota. It is published by the University of North Dakota, Charles E. Kupchella, president, with assistance from the Office of University Relations, Box 7144, Grand Forks, ND 58202-7144

Contributors:
Charles E. Kupchella, David Vorland, Peter Johnson, Marilyn Hagerty, Kathryn Sweney, and Daryl Sager. Photographer Chuck Kimmerle. Designer: Dick Larson. Web Designer: Chad Sperling.

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