by Sarah Schellpeper
Improving the vitality of food, energy, water, animals, land, and people requires sophisticated equipment coupled with researchers who are educated and passionate about improving the human condition.
More than 9 billion people will coexist on Earth before 2050 — an increase of more than 2 billion from today. Thus the research into bettering the “human condition” is needed today in preparation for the future. “Nebraska has an important role in creating and sustaining a healthy source of food for a global population,” according to Archie Clutter, dean of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln Agricultural
Research Division. “As a state, we need to be leaders.”
Yet research takes time and money — and increased competition for traditional funding now requires diversified approaches to acquire funding. Partnering across disciplines and with business, industry and individual producers is important, not only to acquire funding, but to provide faster application of research, train the upcoming workforce, and integrate business development training. Partnerships are built to benefit both partners, Clutter said. When both partners’ goals and expertise come together, “it is a win-win,” he added.
“From basic discovery to application, often there is opportunity for a partnership with the private sector to accelerate research into impacts,” he said. That captures the importance of any kind of partnership and delivering the value from research and research investments.
Nebraska Innovation Campus
Partnerships bring the private sector together with faculty in a place where innovation can occur, Clutter said. Nebraska Innovation Campus — the university’s developing research campus — is the place at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln designed to make those innovations occur.
Nebraska Innovation Campus is itself a public-private partnership where private investment is paired with university commitment to continue the development of facilities and opportunities that exist there, he said. Nebraska Innovation Campus is all about creating, fostering and mentoring partnerships too, ranging from large, multinational corporations to small startups headed by entrepreneurs. Occasionally, individual donors partner with the university on a project that aligns with a university priority and the individual’s personal interest.
Clutter said examples of university partnerships include those with UNL and the commodity boards, such as corn, wheat, soybean and sorghum. Increasingly, there are new forms of partnerships with producer or producer groups in precision agriculture; water and irrigation; animal genetics; and food science and technology. Each partner provides support in different ways, as well as providing a connection to producer priorities, he explained.
UNL has a longstanding on-farm research program through the Agricultural Research Division and Nebraska Extension, which shares these on-farm research outcomes with Nebraska’s agricultural producers, Clutter said. Research that takes place in a university greenhouse, for instance, yields plant varieties that are then grown on small plots on university farms, and then taken to farmers’ fields for a field-scale evaluation. “That partnership with producers is really valuable,” he said.
Public-private partnerships often align with the current interests and research of a faculty member, Clutter said. If the interests and research fit with available resources, there could be a match. Bayer CropScience partnered with the university by endowing the Nebraska Wheat Growers Presidential Chair. The funding aligns with the research of longtime UNL wheat breeder P. Stephen Baenziger. The funds are self-perpetuating, supporting both wheat research and students — who are in the upcoming workforce pipeline. These students are learning to breed new wheat varieties.
Developing the ‘pipeline’
There are great workforce needs in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields, Clutter said. Developing capacity in the workforce is a priority for UNL.
The workforce pipeline necessary for food security will be enhanced by providing opportunities for students to participate in research, he said. The university side of a partnership often includes a significant commitment to graduate students and post-doctoral graduates, in addition to funding for leading researchers. There are collaborations today in food science and manufacturing, based on partnerships, he said. In July 2015 the UNL Department of Food Science and Technology became the first department to move to Nebraska Innovation Campus; the department occupies the Food Innovation Center. The department includes The Food Processing Center and the Food Allergy Research and Resource Program — both longtime examples of UNL public-private partnerships.
“Graduate and undergraduate students, and interns — today have opportunities to work in the Food Innovation Center on projects that are really a collaboration of our faculty, mentors and company personnel,” Clutter said.
Many companies include both business goals and professional development goals in their organizational structures. Clutter said both student and faculty participants in university partnerships with companies can benefit not only from research and application outcomes, but also by gaining professional development related to team performance, project management, and how to commercialize research.
“It’s not just about achieving direct research goals, but about building capacity for the workforce,” he said. Students who might not even consider working for a company when they enter graduate school may work in university partnerships and learn there are growing opportunities in that subdivision of the private sector, he said.
“We need to be known as the place where a student can come and experience collaborative research with the private sector,” Clutter said.
Funding to feed the future
Partnerships are critical — “a very important part of the support that we have is from private sector partners,” Clutter said. “Again, we are focused on impacts needed to provide and sustain healthy food for a quickly growing global population.” What Nebraska can do to contribute to that food security has to be driven by partnerships with the private sector. “If we are really going to achieve what we need to achieve over the next 20 years, it has to be in partnership with the private sector,” he said.
The university receives support not only from partnerships, but from federal grants, state dollars and private gifts.
“Nebraska tax dollars are really important to everything we do,” Clutter said. “We are very fortunate in the state of Nebraska that we have significant funding from the state.”
Those tax dollars help the university to sustain programs, fund work that is specific to Nebraska, and address needs in Nebraska as they emerge. “We can leverage from that strong base to seek federal funding or other sources of funding,” he explained.
Public-private partnerships currently are the fastest-growing sector of university funding, Clutter said. While there is increasing competition for fewer dollars from traditional external funding sources, such as grants from the federal government, “partnerships provide new opportunities to support research programs in a way that accelerates impact,” he explained.
Partnerships often result in new companies and more jobs. Clutter pointed out that partnerships contribute to and accelerate economic development through faster commercial applications of agricultural and environmental research. [ ard.unl.edu ]