Too bad Maine’s challenge isn’t to take its tiny population, its rural setting, its low incomes and lower than average percent of adults with college degrees and keep up with the hottest research and development economies around. That, at least, would be easier than what its real challenge is: take all these conditions and not merely keep up but work faster than most other states to lift Maine out of its worst-in-the-nation ranking in this increasingly important field.

The best, and perhaps the only, hope of accomplishing this is for all of Maine’s R&D enterprises to work together, to make all the small parts into a substantial whole. The announcement yesterday of an agreement that forms partnerships between the University of Maine and the state’s premier research institutions is the best news for what Maine might achieve since lawmakers first came to understand the importance of R&D four years ago. The UMaine partnerships are with The Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory of Salisbury Cove, The University of Southern Maine and the Maine Medical Center Research Institute.

The Cooperative Graduate Studies Program, as the partnerships are known, could help Maine in several ways. Perhaps most importantly, they will offer doctoral-level educations in, for instance, biosciences, which were previously unavailable to UMaine students. The opportunity for students to learn from the latest research moves their programs to the forefront of national and even world-level study. And the agreement with USM will help both universities and allow Southern Maine students to earn a Ph.D. while minimizing duplication between campuses.

UMaine a bigger research facility as a result of these agreements, giving it more resources and expertise and opening opportunities in areas of study previously closed. In a practical sense, UMaine President Peter Hoff pointed out yesterday, this makes the university more competitive for federal grants, particularly those from the National Institutes of Health, a huge but, for Maine, largely untapped resource for important research. UMaine’s partners are already successful – for instance, Jackson Lab’s contribution to global health questions is well established and MDI Biological is growing in the same direction. Partnerships with these institutions will allow UMaine to participate in developing new strategies for solving health problems while expanding economic opportunities at home.

Maine is a small place and the new Census numbers make it feel even smaller. If it is going to succeed in the race to capture research funding, it is far better for its several research institutions to run together, to attract and educate the next generation of scientists and researchers cooperatively and capture opportunities that no single organization could win. The new partnerships are an excellent approach to help Maine catch up.