ODU's Heller to Appear on Panel at Statewide Research Summit
June 04, 2014
Interim Vice President for Research Rodger Harvey said the Commonwealth of Virginia can realize economic gains through investment in research at its state universities.
Richard Heller, eminent scholar and director of Old Dominion University's Frank Reidy Research Center for Bioelectrics, will be on a panel discussing Virginia universities' exemplary public-private partnerships at a research summit June 9, hosted by the State Council for Higher Education in Virginia (SCHEV).
The panel, which features senior research faculty from five Virginia universities - talking about successful collaborations and principal investigator grants in which economic development outcomes were created - is part of a day-long symposium hosted by SCHEV at the Omni Richmond Hotel.
The delegation of ODU participants in the summit includes Provost Carol Simpson; the university's new Vice President for Research Morris Foster; Interim Vice President for Research Rodger Harvey; John Sokolowski, executive director of the Virginia, Modeling Analysis and Simulation Center (VMASC), and other senior officials.
Harvey said the research summit is important for both academic leaders and business partners in Virginia.
"It will bring critical focus on the challenges for long term academic research in the commonwealth and the need for critical investments," Harvey said. "The gains that ODU has seen in our research capability and progress on important discoveries cannot be sustained in the face of static support by the federal governments and the emphasis on commercial success by private industry. The major advances made by Virginia research universities are years in the making, yet we know academic research investments can have long term payoffs for student training, increased knowledge and economic vitality. I'm hopeful this summit will shine some light on the critical role the state can play in its own success."
Those words were echoed in a recent guest column in the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
Joann DiGennaro, summit chair and SCHEV board member, stressed the need for additional academic research funding from the government of Virginia.
"Universities cannot count on the federal government to continue previous levels of support for academic research. According to the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, federal funding for higher education research and development declined from $40.8 billion in FY2011 to $40.1 billion in FY2012," DiGennaro said.
A link to her guest column is here: http://www.timesdispatch.com/opinion/their-opinion/columnists-blogs/guest-columnists/digennaro-increase-state-funding-for-academic-r-d/article_486f5caf-2946-51d4-a8ed-89fecd00c0f5.html.
The Virginia Higher Education Research Summit is hosted by SCHEV in cooperation with the Center for Excellence in Education, Center for Innovative Technology, Virginia Chamber of Commerce, Virginia Business Higher Education Council, and the Virginia Economic Development Partnership.
Gov. Terry McAuliffe will deliver a keynote address, along with Reginald Brothers, undersecretary of homeland security for science and technology, and Christopher Jones, corporate vice president and president of Northrop Grumman Technical Services.
Panel discussions will highlight successful efforts, best practices, current and future needs for advancing academic research and development, and related economic-development enterprise in Virginia.
Organizers and participants hope the summit will serve as a launching point for future public and private collaborations.
For more information about the SCHEV research summit, see: http://www.schev.edu/VAResearchSummit.asp.