R&D challenge

The $4 million in state money recently delivered for university research is at once an amazing 700 percent increase in this type of funding and sad evidence of a state that has yet to understand how important these investments have become. The offical start this week of a campaign to pass a $20 million research bond in the November election is the perfect opportunity to change that.

A recent poll suggested Mainers don’t know much about the research bond and aren’t particularly inclined to support it when they do know. Part of the reason for this may be based on some confusion about the purpose of the bond (of which the University of Maine System will get $13.5 million.)

The research money is not simply more dollars dumped on higher education. It is leverage money. Just like the highway funds that Maine voters approve year in and year out, research money given to the university leverages federal dollars — lots of them. Last year, for instance, the university turned $450,000 in state funding into $2.4 million by attracting federal grants. This gets important research done, helps support other areas of the university, brings excellent jobs to Maine and supports the sellers of goods and services here.

The $4 million, approved by the Legislature last spring, will further help the university and the region, but the sad part about the state money is that it is a huge increase for Maine but a tiny amount compared with what other states are receiving. The disparity can be seen in the 1996 federal research and development money leveraged by all states and the District of Columbia, in which Maine ranks 50th.

Forget about competing with the big boys of research (California received $2.4 billion in federal money; New York, $1.5 billion; Massachusetts, $1.1 billion), Maine hasn’t come close to its smaller neighbors. While this state in ’96 won a comparatively modest $25 million in federal R&D, New Hampshire pulled in $99 million, Rhode Island got $103 million and even Vermont doubled Maine’s share at $50 million. Maine’s take has improved slightly in the last couple of years, but it remains at the bottom of the list.

The money from the state and, perhaps, from the bond goes for such high-tech projects as semiconducting materials and software engineering, but as important it would fund research on the backbone of Maine industry: paper and potatoes, blueberries and lobster, forests and farmland. Growers in Aroostook benefit and so do fishermen Downeast. The money attracts new jobs and people to a portion of the state losing both while helping existing businesses from the dairy farmer with three employees to Eastern Maine Healthcare, with 4,300 employees.

That’s why the $4 million in state money, the bond money and more is desperately needed. Funding research and development is the single most important move Maine can make this year to create good jobs now and better jobs for its children. It hurts to rank 50th — unless Maine invests in R&D in a big way, it will hurt worse to redefine the bottom.