Research benefits

Though you wouldn’t know it from the way the question is worded on November’s ballot, a proposal to spend $5 million for biomedical and marine-based research brings in additional $40 million in federal funding. Nothing else comes close to that 8-to-1 match and that’s not even the most important part of the bond.

Good jobs – the kind people can make into careers – are at the center of this proposal. The jobs created by this bond would average $40,000 a year, include benefits and a chance for promotion. From maintenance to tech and lab support to hands-on research the jobs created would offer opportunity for a wide range of skills. And they would include the kind of jobs for which Maine kids attend college then leave the state to find work. These jobs mean they can stay and prosper in Maine.

The effect of this bond isn’t guesswork; it can be shown in the results of a $10 million state grant to these same institutions last year. The Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, for instance, received more than $6 million of the state support to help build a genetic resources building and promptly leveraged another $30 million from the National Institutes of Health. The Maine Medical Center Research Institute in South Portland used just under $1 million in state money to expand its work in heart and bone disease and cancer, attracting an added $11 million from NIH. The Foundation for Blood Research in Scarborough used $81,000 for a computer upgrade and leveraged $6 million in NIH and other grants.

The 10 institutions that received the state money, including the University of Maine, have already more than quintupled the initial investment, carrying out important research, creating hundreds of new jobs in emerging fields of medicine and health and spinning off more than $100 million in related benefits. Expect more to come – these results are among the most positive for Maine’s economy in a year that is that otherwise looks dismal. And the money buys more than jobs – more than 80 percent of the goods

The research bond is Question 2 on the ballot. It was put on quietly after state government found only $4 million in its budget to fund grants for the buildings and equipment these institutions needed to grow. The biomedical research industry in Maine can take even these low levels of state spending and turn them into something substantial. That’s an investment the public should be eager to make.