Sharing its story: UC San Diego brings home its global reputation for research excellence

Good news has been plentiful at the University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego) over Chancellor Marye Anne Fox’s eight-year tenure, which will end as she steps down in 2012. The university has experienced record years of sponsored research funding, exceeding the $1 billion mark in 2010. It successfully completed a $1 billion capital campaign four years ago and has initiated $3.5 billion in capital improvements since 2004.

But the funding news hasn’t been all good. With California and US federal government tax revenues declining steadily, publicly funded universities have been hit with some dramatic cuts. In the last state budget, funding for the University of California was reduced by $650 million, or a 21% reduction. As a result, UC San Diego’s expected total budget shortfall of around $100 million necessitates restructuring and consolidations where feasible, and finding ways to shift salaried positions to grants and endowments.

How does a university communicate publicly within such a context?

Fox: It’s a challenge to manage public opinion when a large part of the public may not understand the difference between an operating budget and a capital budget. Or how we deal with grants and subcontracts. The more complex the arrangements, the more complex communication can become. Compounding that, research projects often require multiple investments over a long period. Without the patience for those long-term payoffs, quality of scientific life would be very much diminished. It’s a communication challenge, but one well worth doing and worth doing well.

We were very fortunate to have been able to share our story with a broad audience in 2010-11 with UC San Diego’s 50th anniversary. Within international academic circles, we are known as one of the youngest of the best and the best of the youngest. Locally, we have worked to raise awareness of our impact through a series of events, press coverage, broadcasts and publications, designed to not only highlight our world-class research, but also our economic impact. On average, UC San Diego has about 40 start-up companies each year coming out of our research portfolio; they provide jobs and enhanced infrastructure locally, and improve the quality of life here and around the globe.

Our 50th anniversary year was a real eye opener for many as we showcased the quality of our graduates and teaching, and the productivity of our research programs.

How does UC San Diego determine the direction of its research?

One of the duties and responsibilities of a university’s executive leaders is to share opportunities with the faculty. That said, the faculty here are brilliant and you just have to step back and “let ’em run.” Our students are also highly engaged and contribute to the shaping of our initiatives. Our undergraduate students’ work on sustainability inspired them to seek more options in their curriculum. It was our students, not our faculty, who arranged for the cruise that found the garbage repository in the Pacific Ocean the size of the state of Texas. On campus, there is a wide appreciation of the need for sustainability, largely emanating from an active Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

On our campus, you’ll see solar trees, new fuel cell systems, hydrogen-dispensing fuel pumps, and alternate energy sources being examined.

One of the powerhouses of UC San Diego research is its interdisciplinary nature. For example, on my first day at UC San Diego, we named a new building for bioengineering, and our bioengineering department was one of the first interdisciplinary engineering departments anywhere in the country. Since then, I’ve learned that innovation, cooperation and collaboration are core values here. Collaboration is much easier here than it was at my previous institutions.

Can you tell me more about another collaborative effort, the Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine, and the public’s reaction to it?

We’re a month out from opening a new facility hosting the Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine. The Sanford Consortium is unique in that it’s the first time all four institutions on the La Jolla mesa — UC San Diego, Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute, the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, and The Scripps Research Institute — have come together not just for a simple collaboration between one or two research grantees, but for a whole program growing out of a common and important research area. There were two vital components in its establishment. In 2004, California voters approved Proposition 71, the Stem Cell Research and Cures Act, which provides $3 billion for stem cell research in California. In addition to generating funding, the initiative opened up stem cell lines that were previously restricted and brought both scientific and private recognition to the University of California. Subsequently, a private donor, T. Denny Sanford from South Dakota, contributed an additional $30 million to the consortium.

California voters recognized the payoff of this research, and we think it will be to society’s benefit quite soon. This idea of demonstrating a payoff to gain public support and recognition is taking root in other areas as well. For example, we have a prime opportunity in UC San Diego Health Sciences and the School of Medicine. A key initiative there is translating the medical advances in the laboratories to bedside care.

What are your plans after passing the baton in 2012?

I’d like to take a closer look at middle and high school science education in the US from a local, national and international perspective. I would have the opportunity here to work closely with UC San Diego’s high school and middle school partners, including The Preuss School UCSD and Gompers Preparatory Academy as living laboratories for new concepts for science education.

Or I might teach organic chemistry or teach in the Rady School of Management.

Not everyone has that on their resume.

Really? Everybody I know knows something about organic chemistry. [She says with a smile.]

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(1) In August 2009, students at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego dedicated a scientific mission to exploring and analyzing the problem of plastic waste in the North Pacific Ocean Gyre. http://seaplexscience.com/

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Contributor: 

Marye Anne Fox

Title: 

Chancellor

Affiliation: 

University of California, San Diego

Marye Anne Fox is the Chancellor of the University of California, San Diego. She has received honorary degrees from 12 institutions in the US and abroad, and in October 2010, President Barack Obama awarded Fox the National Medal of Science, the highest honor bestowed by the US government on scientists, engineers and inventors. Previously, Fox was Chancellor at North Carolina State University, and she spent 22 years at the University of Texas where she advanced to Vice President for Research and held the Waggoner Regents Chair in chemistry. Fox earned a bachelor’s degree in science from Notre Dame College, a master’s degree in science from Cleveland State University and a Ph.D. from Dartmouth College.