Bison bison
05-04-2011, 02:51 PM
Not sure if anyone else is following the upheaval going on within the AAU (that is the American Association of Universities an organization made up of 61 'elite' research universities.]
The AAU is the good ole boys club of universities, but it's got a problem. Their are a lot of universities that want in and that have credentials that are more impressive than existing members. However, the AAU wants to maintain some degree of exclusivity.
To not look like a bunch of snobs, they want to admit new members, but to do so they need to make a little room. At the same time they want 'their type of members'.
In the last week the University of Nebraska was kicked out and Syracuse willingly departed. The former is crazy. UNL isn't Harvard, but a great Land Grant School. Unfortunately is does too much of the 'wrong kind' of research - ag and none of the 'right kind' - biomedical.
There is a lot of turmoil of the loss of UNL.
But things are just starting to get crazy. There are a lot of schools that don't fit the profile that the AAU wants - I think Colorado State is the best example of this. And a lot of members that are relative peons in the world of research.
//////////
Anyways to my genius idea. The AAU has established criteria - federal research dollars, members of the National Academies, etc.
NDSU measures pretty well on many of these, I think it's fair to say that NDSU is in the top 100 research institutions in the country (by a close shave).
However, we do the wrong kind of research - trying to feed people, what a waste of human effort.
But we if we started doing the right kind in the eyes of the AAU - biomedical/clinical testing? Obviously we aren't starting up a medical school unless someone wants to donate $500 million - SDBison?
The idea is to partner strategically with Cetero Research (PRACs) to develop NDSU controlled, federally financed clinical testing effort.
Cetero has a great reputation, but its work is privately funded (which doesn't count for AAU - again with the snobbery). Combining their expertise with NDSU could be a game changer.
A single multi-year NIH study can easily be in the millions/tens of millions of dollars. All that we need is a start, a couple of hot shot research scientists, and a winning proposal.
With a little luck and help from Washington, in ten years, we could be doing tens of millions of dollars of biomedical/clinical testing research.
The AAU is the good ole boys club of universities, but it's got a problem. Their are a lot of universities that want in and that have credentials that are more impressive than existing members. However, the AAU wants to maintain some degree of exclusivity.
To not look like a bunch of snobs, they want to admit new members, but to do so they need to make a little room. At the same time they want 'their type of members'.
In the last week the University of Nebraska was kicked out and Syracuse willingly departed. The former is crazy. UNL isn't Harvard, but a great Land Grant School. Unfortunately is does too much of the 'wrong kind' of research - ag and none of the 'right kind' - biomedical.
There is a lot of turmoil of the loss of UNL.
But things are just starting to get crazy. There are a lot of schools that don't fit the profile that the AAU wants - I think Colorado State is the best example of this. And a lot of members that are relative peons in the world of research.
//////////
Anyways to my genius idea. The AAU has established criteria - federal research dollars, members of the National Academies, etc.
NDSU measures pretty well on many of these, I think it's fair to say that NDSU is in the top 100 research institutions in the country (by a close shave).
However, we do the wrong kind of research - trying to feed people, what a waste of human effort.
But we if we started doing the right kind in the eyes of the AAU - biomedical/clinical testing? Obviously we aren't starting up a medical school unless someone wants to donate $500 million - SDBison?
The idea is to partner strategically with Cetero Research (PRACs) to develop NDSU controlled, federally financed clinical testing effort.
Cetero has a great reputation, but its work is privately funded (which doesn't count for AAU - again with the snobbery). Combining their expertise with NDSU could be a game changer.
A single multi-year NIH study can easily be in the millions/tens of millions of dollars. All that we need is a start, a couple of hot shot research scientists, and a winning proposal.
With a little luck and help from Washington, in ten years, we could be doing tens of millions of dollars of biomedical/clinical testing research.