A $1.9 million deletion in state funding for MSU's Rare Isotope Accelerator project has left the university scrambling to find the financial support needed to remain competitive for the U.S. Department of Energy project.
MSU is in position to lose state funding for the project under the higher education budget approved last week by the Legislature. The budget awaits approval by Gov. Jennifer Granholm, who seems unwilling to restore project funding during unfavorable economic conditions.
Those funds would have allowed the university to keep pace with Illinois-based Argonne National Laboratory, MSU's main competitor, in the race to host the facility.
The Rare Isotope Accelerator, also known as RIA, allows researchers to probe isotopes not found on Earth.
"If the state funding would disappear, we would struggle," said Konrad Gelbke, director of MSU's National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory. "We would have to find alternate ways of funding or reduce our effort."
During the next several months, the U.S. Department of Energy will formally commit to the RIA project and then decide how it will select a host site.
Several science committees say RIA is the highest project priority for the United States, said Howard Gobstein, MSU's associate vice president for governmental affairs in Washington, D.C.
MSU undertook research for RIA in 2000. About 10 staff members conduct research for RIA at MSU.
Although the laboratory and the U.S. Department of Energy have allocated money for the more than $2.6 million project in the past, the major source of funding comes from the state of Michigan, Gelbke said.
But funding for RIA is just not feasible for the state at this time, said Mary Detloff, spokeswoman for Granholm.
"We had a huge deficit we were facing," she said.
Reinstating funding for the project might be possible in the future, but the economy has to improve first, Detloff said.
The state's decision to cut funding comes at the same time the U.S. House of Representatives Energy & Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee proposed $6 million be allocated for RIA research and development in the 2003-04 fiscal year, Gobstein said.
The legislation has not been voted on in the house but has a good chance of being passed, Gobstein said.
Because this is new ground for the energy department, established guidelines for the competition still need to be completed, he said.
In order for competition to be fair, the department needs to use criteria that recognizes the importance of education and doesn't give an unfair advantage to institutions, such as Argonne National Laboratory, that are supported largely by federal funds.
The effort behind writing a proposal for RIA is expensive, and the laboratory has the money to do it, Gobstein said.
"That could be a disadvantage to us," he said. "We're promoting ways to make it an even playing field."
