R&D Maine

Informally anyway, a group of UMaine professors omnipresent at Rotary Clubs and Chambers of Commerce meetings in the mid-1990s were known as the Gang of Five. The Gang spent about two years fomenting revolution in Maine. Their cause, however, wasn’t political; it was an attempt to persuade, cajole, entice, encourage and, if necessary, hector this state into joining the late 20th-century drive to prosper through research and development. They almost succeeded.

State funding of R&D went from almost nothing to more than $25 million a year, much of that going to the University of Maine System, while other state funds went for capital projects to help places like the renowned Jackson Laboratory expand its work. The university has used its money well, leveraging by many times the state’s share in private and federal dollars. In Southern Maine, biotechnology has been expanding, as has the business of composite materials.

It’s all encouraging, especially considering where Maine was just a few years ago, but it is nowhere near enough, as two recent studies demonstrate. One, from The Corporation for Economic Development, looked at human and financial resources, infrastructure and the opportunity for innovation in a state and gave Maine a depressing D grade for development capacity. The other, from the Milken Institute, combined 12 measures – educational attainment, R&D, business startups, patents issued, etc. – and ranked states by each measure and offered a total score. Maine ranked in the low 30s among states overall (the equivalent of a D) and at or near the bottom on the federal, industry and academic R&D scores. The point of the Milken study was to identify which states were ready for the new economy; the answer, at least from this corner of the country is, not Maine.

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Whether anything can be done about this is an open question – Maine may drift along as a low-tech, low-wage state for years to come as it watches its children head off to those states that are embracing the changing economy. But we hope Maine will fight. We hope it will use the resources it has to compete and win in the world economy. And to help Maine understand what resources it has the Bangor Daily News today is beginning a column to be known as R&D Maine that will run on the op-ed page each Monday. The column will be written by many different people – scientists, policymakers, members of the public – who have an interest in seeing Maine use research and development to its greatest advantage. To begin this series, Sen. Olympia Snowe discusses the federal role in encouraging R&D.

The column’s purpose will be threefold:

. Tell readers something they don’t know but could find interesting or useful. Preferably both.

. Let them know about the kinds of work being done in this state, particularly if that work is in part funded by their tax dollars.

. Introduce conversations around science and scientific work.

Readers themselves are invited to participate in the discussion. Each commentary of 750 or 850 words should briefly describe research being done, introducing basic concepts of the field; summarize findings; and describe why the work is important to others. The piece could further show how the R&D is connected to current events or to other research in Maine. Some responses to the work being discussed will be negative. They are welcome too if the objections are grounded in good science and offered in the spirit of greater understanding.

Recent legislatures and the administration of Gov. Angus King have understood that Maine must invest in itself before it can expect anyone else to invest. That’s easy to do when revenue surpluses roll in but hard to do now, in times of shortfall. The alternative, however, is to fall further behind other states and to ask the current fragile economy to provide stability when worldwide economic forces work against it.

A newspaper column doesn’t solve these problems, of course, but it will succeed if it can describe how the problems can be solved. You’re invited to contribute your thoughts.