CHAPEL HILL – Check this on your smartphone: In the past 30 years, we’ve seen technological innovations we never could have dreamed of in health care, communications and any number of fields.
“That’s all given us by research,” Interim UNC System President William L. Roper says in the accompanying video. “And we, the University of North Carolina System, do a whole heck of a lot of research, most of it funded by the federal government, but others as well.”
Collectively, UNC System institutions did $1.5 billion in sponsored research in 2017-18, according to an annual report on sponsored research.
UNC Chapel Hill surpassed $1 billion in research expenditures for the first time last year1 and now ranks 5th in the nation for sponsored research.2
NC State University surpassed $500 million for the second year in a row in 2017-18 and ranked fourth in the nation for the share of university research supported by industry. NC State also saw 20 startups formed that were based on NCSU intellectual property.3
Roughly two-thirds of the research dollars (64.7%) came from the federal government – $482 million from the National Institutes of Health and $136 million from the National Science Foundation.4
Roper broadly outlines how research improves people’s lives.
“That is not just ivory-tower, egghead stuff that has no practical application.
“It has very tangible good things to give people who need better diagnosis and treatment for their ailment, or people who need better technology to do their job, or educational tools that the next generation of schoolchildren or adults will need,” he says.
“That is what research is all about,” he says. “And the people of North Carolina need to understand research in the practical effect it has on their lives and their children’s and grandchildren’s lives and beyond.”
There’s a reason it’s called the Research Triangle: In 2017-18 alone, the region’s three research universities generated 41 new companies.5
North Carolinians “also need to see it for the economic engine,” Roper says. “Because companies are in Silicon Valley or Austin, Texas or the Boston area because of the universities that are there that turn out this research that is then harvested and used to start up companies – many of which now are mega-, mega-trillion dollar companies.
“That’s what we can do here in North Carolina if we put our mind to it.”
1https://www.northcarolina.edu/sites/default/files/documents/research_and_sponsored_programs_report_2017-2018.pdf, p. 3.
2Interview with UNC Chapel Hill Interim Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz, June 6, 2019. UNC Chapel Hill ranked 5th nationally and 1st in the South in federally funded research expenditures in FY 2017: https://research.unc.edu/about/facts-rankings/funding/.
3https://www.northcarolina.edu/sites/default/files/documents/research_and_sponsored_programs_report_2017-2018.pdf, p. 2.
4https://www.northcarolina.edu/sites/default/files/documents/research_and_sponsored_programs_report_2017-2018.pdf, pp. 5-6.
5https://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/news/2019/05/09/41-companies-formed-out-the-big-three-research.html; https://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/news/2019/06/14/cover-story-fueling-triangle-startups.html
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