UC Campuses will
House New Institutes for Science and Innovation
In
December, Governor Gray Davis announced the selection of three California
Institutes for Science and Innovation to be located on UC campuses.
The billion-dollar, multidisciplinary effort will focus resources
and expertise from the public and private sectors simultaneously on
three cutting-edge research areas to sustain California's economic
growth and competitiveness in the global marketplace:
- The California NanoSystems Institute, at UCLA
in collaboration with UC Santa Barbara, will enable design and
construction of functional devices and materials with components
that measure no more than a billionth of a meter;
- The California Institute for Telecommunications
and Information Technology, at UC San Diego in collaboration with
UC Irvine, will develop innovative new materials and devices and
radically expand the capacities of communications and information
infrastructures; and
- The California Institute for Bioengineering,
Biotechnology and Quantitative Biomedical Research, at UC San
Francisco in collaboration with UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz,
will bring together scientists in biomedical research, engineering
and physical sciences to seek breakthroughs in diagnosis, treatment
and prevention of disease.
California has committed $75 million annually for
four years to establish the centers, with each center receiving $25
million in state funds each year. The institutes must leverage this
by obtaining a two-to-one match of non-state funds for every $1 of
state money to fund their research programs.
Davis also pledged to request additional state funding for a fourth
institute: UC Berkeley's Center for Information Technology Research
in the Interest of Society (CITRIS), which would bring the power of
information to bear on societal needs such as transportation, education,
emergency preparedness and health care.
The three institutes will draw top researchers and students from all
of UC's 10 campuses and three national laboratories as well as other
research institutions. Collaboration between institute researchers
and leaders in industry will ultimately speed early-stage research,
leading to a more rapid delivery of public benefits.
"This initiative has inspired an unprecedented level of collaboration,
both among different disciplines at the University of California and
with private industry," said UC President Richard Atkinson.
More information about the institutes is available online.
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