 "Photo: Katie Smith")
The National Science Foundation awarded Delaware colleges a $15 million grant as a part of its Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research, university and state officials announced on Nov. 7. The purpose of the EPSCoR Research Infrastructure Improvement grant is to promote understanding of environmental issues, as well as economic development in the state through competitive research.
EPSCoR is a federal government program that awards approximately $120 million per year between 27 states to enhance their research and education capabilities and infrastructures. Officials announced the award at the Delaware Biotechnology Institute, headquarters of the Delaware EPSCoR office.
The grant will be divided over five years between four Delaware universities who are partners with EPSCoR, including the University of Delaware, Delaware State University, Delaware Technical & Community College and Wesley College.
Donald L. Sparks, director of the Center for Critical Zone Research and principal investigator of the EPSCoR grant at the university, said the University of Delaware is the lead institution in the grant. The money comes here first then portions go to the other universities.
"Each place has certain things they're emphasizing in terms of how they're going to be using the funds," Sparks said.
The CCZR - critical zone referring to the part of the earth that humans inhabit - was a product of the university's first EPSCoR grant and now plays the lead research role in the new $15 million grant. Sparks described research as a major part of the grant.
"We make a discovery in the lab and then we try to take those results and use that to address something that's important in Delaware and it may go well beyond Delaware," he said.
CCZR officials have three main goals they plan to realize using the grant money. The first, mentioned above, is to bridge the gap between researching and using that research to solve environmental issues. This will involve collaboration with government agencies like the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, as well as with industry and nonprofit organizations.
The second goal is to enhance research capability and infrastructure. There are four thrusts of research - air quality, ecosystem health, environmental restoration and environmental monitoring. Air quality is a problem in urban areas, ecosystem health is a concern around the coastal areas and inland bays, and environmental restoration is an issue at agricultural sites.
Sparks said some damaged or polluted agricultural environments, called brown fields, are difficult to restore.
"We have sites that are contaminated, and there are problems with redeveloping those areas for future use," he said.
The CCZR hopes to develop environmental monitoring sensors that help to predict environmental problems, even those in the water.
"We could predict when we'd have a fish kill and then help remediate the problem," Sparks said.
He said people in the material science department and the physics department will be working on this project with the new grant money.
The third goal is to train and educate students.
Delaware EPSCoR Director Steve Borleske said the grant reaches across a diverse student population.
"If we look at the future of the country, we really need to educate a very diverse student population to handle the complex needs that will be coming at us," Borleske said.
To do this, the university plans to hire four new faculty members who can teach students about environmental issues. Both graduate and undergraduate students will work closely with faculty on research using the new grant.
The faculty plays a key role both the education and the research process behind EPSCoR. Teams of faculty members conduct critical first experiments in order to start new areas of research.
Borleske said the university supports the faculty and gives them focus areas, but does not tell them specifically what to research.
"They know that best," he said. "We're relying on their creativity and ingenuity."
Harsh Bais, assistant professor of plant and soil science and EPSCoR researcher, said the university needs environmental research.
"It directly relates to environmental issues here in Delaware," Bais said.
He said the grant money allows faculty to collaborate in their research. Bais, a plant biologist, is working with geography and climate researchers to address broader environmental questions about the marsh dieback in Delaware.
Bais discovered an invasive reed that secretes a toxin, killing the surrounding plants. He said the previous EPSCoR grant allowed him to generate enough preliminary data in his research to win a competitive grant this year.
Environmental ethics also play a part in the university's EPSCoR program. Thomas Powers, director of the Science, Ethics and Public Policy program said it would receive about $1 million of the grant over the five years.
"That is a fairly big chunk of money for an ethics program because we don't have the kind of overhead cost that a laboratory might have," he said.
Powers said SEPP is there to collaborate with all of the other researchers in the grant. Its officials help scientists and engineers who are working on issues that have ethical implications.
The grant money will be used by SEPP to pay for their operating costs and to provide money that is used to buy books and to send researchers to conferences and other libraries.
"In the best-case scenario, that trickles down to the level of the classroom so that faculty are able to teach students new topics," Powers said.
The students benefit from the grant money because, in the classroom, they are exposed to new ideas, and there are more opportunities for graduate and undergraduate research.
The grant has given SEPP a good deal of momentum, and Powers said he hopes that within the next three to five years it becomes a center rather than just a program. This would enable SEPP to develop classes and to bring in speakers for more colleges at the university, but it requires funding.
"Surprisingly enough, even doing ethics takes money," he said.
Powers said getting money from outside is important because the university can grow without the state having to provide funds or raise tuition. It also has an additive effect, increasing faculty publications and the university's ability to do research, making the university more successful in subsequent grants.
The new grant will serve as a catalyst for raising the prestige of the university, making it more competitive for future grants and enabling it to get further federal funding.
"We're just getting geared up now," Sparks said. "I don't think the research we do will be something only Delaware is interested in."
A Closer Look The last grant awarded to the university's EPSCoR division from the NSF was in March of 2005 for $6 million.
The NSF provides EPSCoR divisions with approximately $120 million annually.
There are 27 states and two territories that participate in EPSCoR, along with the Departments of Agriculture, Energy and Defense, the Environmental Protection Agency and NASA. Each of the 27 states had the option to put in a grant proposal to the NSF to be reviewed by a team of scientists.
Delaware became eligible for EPSCoR in 2003, and since then has received approximately $38 million in federal funds and $4 million in state funds for EPSCoR-related work.
The university began using the funds from the grant in September, Sparks said. It was not announced formally until last week because the group wanted to time the announcement with a press briefing, he said.
- Reported by Lexi Ambrogi
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