Theme 4

Research and Development and Scholarship

to Enhance Alaska’s Communities and

Economic Growth

Daniel M. White, UA VPAAR

Shaping Alaska’s Future

Building Research Capacity

• EPSCoR, $20 million over five years

• Stimulate sustainable R&D capacity and competitiveness

Building Research Capacity

• INBRE, $18 million from the National Institutes of Health

• Statewide biomedical research and student training

• Interface between health, disease and the environment in people and animals

Student-focused Opportunities

• BUILD grant, $24 million from the National Institutes of Health

• Engage rural and minority students in biomedical and health careers

Mining Workforce

• $8.1 million U.S. Department of Labor grant

• Match skilled workforce with high paying jobs

• UAF, UAS,UAA industry and the State of Alaska

UAS and Alaska

Coastal

Rainforest Center

partnerships

with USDA Forest

Service (USFS)

and US

Geological

Survey (USGS),

and UAF

Alaska Coastal Rainforest Center

Southeast Alaska GIS Library:

The GIS Library is a regional UAS-

based partnership which

stewards a significant and

diverse array of geospatial data,

applications, and services

specific to Southeast Alaska.

AK Departments of Environmental

Conservation, Fish & Game; Natural

Resources, and Transportation; City &

Borough of Juneau, Geographic Information

Network of Alaska, Nature Conservancy of

Alaska, National Marine Fisheries

Service/NOAA; US Forest Services; US Fish

& Wildlife Service; US Geological Survey.

Southeast Alaska GIS Library

UAS Alaska Native languages faculty program head X’uneiLance Twitchell worked with a group of UAS students and other language learners from around the state to advocate for the bill’s passage, even staging a sit-in protest at the capitol building in the final days of the 2014 legislative session. In the end, after 15 hours, the group was victorious when the bill was passed.

Native Languages

The SEALAB is a technical research

and educational facility specializing

in geospatial analysis, based at UAS.

UAS’ supporting partners for

SEALAB include the GINA, U.S. Fish

and Wildlife Service, U.S. Forest

Service, U.S. Geological Survey,

Alaska Department of Fish and

Game, National Park Foundation,

North Pacific Landscape

Conservation Cooperative, Alaska

Climate Science Center, and the

National Science Foundation

(EPSCoR).

Spatial Ecosystems Analysis

The UAA Justice Center

collaborates with the

University of Washington

School of Law, the Arctic

Law Section of the Alaska

Bar Association, UAF, and

ISER, hosting a Polar Law

Symposium.

Justice Partnership

The Geographic

Information Network of

Alaska (GINA) develops,

deploys, and maintains geo-

spatial data management

resources for UAF, UAA, and

UAS researchers via the

EPSCoR program and State

of Alaska Department of

Natural Resources (AKDNR)

staff.

Geospatial Solutions

Three years of laser scanning to monitor slope stability for AK DOT&PF. The 2015 field work includes collaboration of UAF with UAA.

UAA Geomatics Professor – Jeff Hollingsworth with two students.

Stabilizing Alaska

The Rasmuson Library

partners with State Library

and Archives, UAA, Anchorage

Museum at Rasmuson

Center, Sheldon Jackson

Museum – Sitka, Seward

Community Library Museum,

Alaska Moving Image

Preservation Association, Sitka

Tribe of Alaska & Sitka

Historical Society, Igiugig, and

Petersburg Public Library.

Historical Perspective

School of Management faculty worked

with the UA Center for Economic

Development at UAA on a publication

for the Alaska Department of

Commerce, Community and Economic

Development on titled “Unmanned

Aircraft Systems: An Economic

Development Strategy for Alaska.”

They also produced study titled

“Aerospace Industry Development for

Alaska.”

Business of UAVs

• Collaborative research with Alaska Native communities

• Received $50 million in support since 2001

• Three, five-year NIH grants for Biomedical Research Excellence

Alaska Native Health

Collaborative health research with Alaska Native communities extends to work conducted across the pan-Arctic

Pan-Arctic Health Impact

Photo provided from Dr. Leonid Zubov from his work on the Kanin Peninsula, Russia

The harvest of dead old-growth YC could provide an emerging opportunity for small-scale rural timber mills in southeast Alaska to produce value-added wood products and provide another means of sustaining timber jobs and resource dependent communities surrounded by the Tongass National Forest.

Community Adaptation

The UAA Arctic Domain Awareness Center (ADAC), a new DHS Center of Excellence, develops systems to systematically observe, assess, predict, and alert incident commanders with actionable information and decision support to respond and prepare for Arctic challenges.

National Scope

ADAC has already engaged communities in the Bering Strait to participate in CBONS and provided them with technology to enable their input into ADAC’s intelligent integrated system of systems (IIOS).

ADAC’s 16 Partners, Geographically Distributed in US and Canada, include: 5universities; 8 corporations; 2 research institutes; and remote Alaskan communities that participate in an effort called Community Based Observer Networks (CBONS).

Ocean Acidification

• Impacts to shellfish farming and potential impacts to fisheries

• Alaska’s fishing communities most vulnerable

Global impact

• In FY14, an average of $4.7 of external funding for every $1 of state general fund investment.

Leveraging State Investment

In FY14, UA received

674 new awarded

proposals, with a total

value of $150 million

giving UA a total active

grants portfolio of

$1.16B

Long Term Prospects

• In FY14, 82.4 percent of all grant and contract dollars for research were spent on Alaska Projects

For Alaskans

My name is Jenell

Larsen and I am a UAF

Masters student in the

School of Fisheries and

Ocean Sciences. My

thesis is looking at the

reproductive capacity

of female Pacific

walruses through the

use of long-term

monitoring projects.

For Alaskans

The smell of cucumber vegetables inundates scientists (L-R) Jeanette Gann (NOAA-AFSC), Melissa Prechtl (UAF Graduate Student), and Kathrine Howard (ADF&G) as they work up an abundance of aromatic capelin forage fish from the Arctic Eis Program surface fish trawl in the northern Bering Sea in Fall 2013. (Photo courtesy of Jim Murphy, NOAA)

For Alaskans

Under the direction of Dr. Ben Potter, the program trains undergraduate and graduate students and post-docs in archaeology and cultural resource management skills. Since 2008, 15 grants totaling $1.9 M have funded seven field programs training 126 students.

About Alaskans

Competitive for Alaska

Anderson Science Building: The UAS Anderson Building is a premier North Pacific marine teaching and research facility. It provides classrooms, teaching labs, and research labs for faculty and students in the UAS biology and marine biology programs.

Competitiveness Counts

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Competitiveness Counts

Grants and contracts awarded to the universities normally require the university or the UA System to provide facilities, administrative support, and qualified faculty and staff for the duration of the grant. Many of the costs for these services are covered by the grants and contracts.

Eligibility and Obligations

In addition to fiscal management, UA and its universities are also required to follow a large number of federal regulations pertaining to research. These are too numerous to describe in detail here, but include:

– Regulations governing use and care of vertebrate animals in research.

– Regulations governing human research.

– Regulations governing biosafety.

– Regulations on environmental health and safety.

– Regulations concerning research misconduct. •

•

Eligibility and Obligations

• Applied research in hydrocarbon optimization

• Recovery of viscous oil, shale oil and gas

• Industry needs: permitting, ice formation in TAPS, etc.

Supporting the future

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Research as an industry

Contracts to local companies (e.g., Jon’s Machine Shop)

Local researcher salaries

Local research Partners (e.g., Alaska Biological Research)

Local commodities Suppliers (e.g., Alaska Pipe and Supply)

Local businesses (food, housing, fuel, entertainment, transportation, insurance)

Research

Follow the money

Alaska Center for Energy and Power• Hands-on research looking

at innovative energy solutions

• Training new generation of engineers

• Leveraged $29 million, nine times the state’s investment

Follow the Impact

Innovation to business

1

2

2

PATENTS ISSUED

Total Invention Disclosures

37* up from 2 in FY 11

Total Patent Applications Filed

32* up from 1 in FY 11

Total Number of Patents Issued

5* up from 0 in FY 11

26

15

3

INVENTION DISCLOSURES

FY 15 todateFY 14

FY 13

FY 12

FY 11

11

Formed April 2013

Formed May 2013Formed December 2014

Commercializing Research through Startups and LicensesFirst 3 Startups

First 3Startup

Companies

*includes data to date from FY 15

2

9

12

8

PATENT APPLICTIONS

FILED

5Total

32Total

37Total

6 Technology Licenses – Starting inFY 13 - Initial Revenue of $16K

Over 75% of Invention

Disclosures Evolved into

a PatentApplication

2 in FY 13

1 in FY 15

0 in FY 11

COMMERCIALIZATION OF RESEARCH

First startup from UAFwww.vadapt.net

Product: Innovative snow removal and deicing using carbon fiber tapes (CFT). Efficient heating by CFT keeps surfaces free of snow and ice –eliminates plowing, and shoveling. Patent pending #14/024,152 – Yang.

Benefits: Green technology, cost effective - operates only when needed, 50% less than hydronic systems to install and operate. UL site certified.

Already installed with additional customer installations in process.

Product: new generation of improved wireless sensors for remote monitoring, system

management (SCADA), climate change, surveillance and security. Benefits: Low cost, ultra-long lifespan sensors do not require batteries, collect, transmit and store data and can form ad-hoc networks.

Selected by DHS for applications in ADAC. Patent pending # 13/891,894 – Lund.

A Snow & Ice Free Pathway

UAA Startups

Product: nutritional therapy to improve memory loss, and treat neuro-degenerative diseases associated with aging. Alzheimer’s affects more than 5 million in the US.

Inspired by a plant indigenous to Alaska known by Alaska native to improve memory – Alaska Bog Blueberry – isolated relevant compound.

Successfully tested in aged rats. Patent pending #14/192,681 - McGill.

Faculty have moved to UA due to the

unique start up opportunities provided

by our new IP enterprises.

THANK YOU

Thank you ( )