The University of Arizona is the Land-Grant institution for Arizona, with the medical college for the state. It is the only school in the state elected to membership in the prestigious AAU consortium of the top academic universities in the country. It is the leading research university for Arizona, ranked 14 in the country among state universities in the National Science Foundation research expenditures list. Its research programs have an economic impact of more than $650 million per year for the state in wages, taxes, and sales, plus the creation of some 9,500 jobs. Despite this generous contribution to Arizona’s economic development, the University of Arizona has never reached its full potential in this regard because the state never specifically supported high-tech economic development.

In 1999 the governor of Arizona formed the Arizona Partnership for the New Economy and the Higher Education Task Force and charged these two committees to develop recommendations to ensure the future economic security of the state. One recommendation common to both committees was that the state must provide support for its three universities to become more actively engaged in high- tech economic development. Other states had long ago recognized the fact that universities play a key role in regional economic prosperity and committed major investments to support these activities of their research universities. In order to become competitive and be a leader in the knowledge-based global economy, the committees recognized that Arizona needed to make a similar investment. The people of the state embraced this recommendation and in November 2000 passed Proposition 301, which provided an increase of 0.6 percent in the state sales tax. Distribution levels were: 87 percent to the needs of K-12 education (including the Students FIRST building program), 3 percent to community colleges, and 10 percent to higher education.

The Governor’s Office directed the state universities to use these Proposition 301 funds “…to develop new and existing programs that will prepare students to contribute to industries associated with the new economy located in the state of Arizona.” The Arizona Board of Regents designated this money as the Technology and Research Initiative Fund (TRIF). The University of Arizona selected four specific research areas to support and expand with TRIF funds: Optics; Biotechnology; Information Technology; and Water. This selection was based on two criteria: to build on existing strengths of high priority to the University; and to collaborate with and support the active southern Arizona industry clusters. The goal for each area is to build a critical mass of research and technology activity that focuses on local economic development by addressing the workforce needs and technical competitiveness of local industries. In addition, TRIF funds are being spent on three infrastructure areas: technology transfer; access; and science and mathematics teacher education. Each of these plays a critical role in the Univer-sity’s efforts to support local industries.

In keeping with the governor’s instructions for the use of Proposition 301 funding, the primary goal of the University of Arizona’s TRIF research initiatives is to expand the educational opportunities for students in the chosen areas. To accomplish this, the University must increase the amount of research space and number of faculty in these areas. It must bring in more research funding to support students and increase state-of-the-art research equipment. A secondary goal is to enhance the University’s outreach to local industries. This requires increased opportunities for distance learning and special technology update short courses, increased industry access to special university laboratories, enhanced technology transfer activities, and increased university-industry collaborations. The University of Arizona has leveraged its TRIF funding with outside grants and contracts to invest in the areas listed above in order to accomplish these goals. In addition, support has been given to the University’s Office of Economic Development to benchmark these activities for evaluating progress in these areas.

Since the start of the TRIF funding, the state has embarked on a planning exercise for the economic future of Arizona. The Flinn Foundation has developed a plan for bioscience areas and the Department of Commerce has developed plans for advanced communications and information technology (including optics) and for sustainable systems (including water). These plans will be forwarded to the governor’s Council on Innovation and Technology to be integrated into an economic development plan for Arizona. The TRIF funding will allow the universities to play a key role in the state economic development agenda. It is important to note that the University of Arizona’s TRIF projects are compatible with the platform areas of the state economic development road map.

In summary, the TRIF funding generated by Proposition 301 represents the first time the state has invested in university activities directly related to local economic development. Actively involving the universities in the state’s agenda for high-tech, economic growth is a critical step toward the future prosperity of the state. It is enabling the University of Arizona to advance its core values of multidisciplinary research and university-industry collaborations in academic and research areas of interest to local companies. The ultimate return on this investment will be a more competitive base of high-tech industries in the state. Each of the TRIF initiatives has identified specific goals to benchmark progress toward this outcome. In addition, business advisory committees have been appointed to help guide their activities. This selective investment of TRIF resources to expand university programs in high priority areas is an example of the university’s program of focused excellence. We hope you find this special issue of Report on Research informative and invite your comments on our Proposition 301 activities.

   
    Richard C. Powell
    Vice President for Research, Graduate Education, and Economic Development