Multimedia
“Research that Addresses the World’s Most Pressing Problems”
President Michael A. McRobbie
Indiana University
Recorded September 2, 2008
Community Grids Pervasive Technology Laboratory
Bloomington, Indiana
Introduction
IU is breaking records. This year, our faculty brought more research funding to the state than ever before. During the last academic year, research dollars coming to IU increased by 21 percent. IU faculty, staff, and students competed successfully with their peers to attract a record total of $525.3 million dollars in externally sponsored research funding. That amount is more than twice the totals of 1998. It is nearly five times the sponsored research dollars of twenty years ago.
Nearly half of this record amount came from federal sources, such as the National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation. That is a 25 percent increase in federal funding over the previous year. It marks another new record for IU. These grants help IU’s outstanding faculty members use their expertise to address some of the world's most pressing problems.
Research That Makes a Difference
I am speaking to you today from the Community Grids information technology laboratory, one of IU's Pervasive Technology laboratories. This lab has just received an important, large grant from the National Science Foundation that will help in the gathering of vital information about global warming.
As you know, the role of polar ice and climate change are issues of major importance. Terrestrial ice cover and glaciers are melting much faster than expected. As a result, ocean levels are rising and threatening populated areas along the seacoasts. In fact, the rate of deterioration has doubled in the last decade. Information technologists in this Community Grids lab are developing tools that will enable researchers on the ground to closely chart these unusually rapid changes.
An Important Partnership
The Polar Grid Cyber Infrastructure Project is a partnership between IU and Elizabeth City State University, an historically black college in North Carolina. We are supporting the mission of their Center for the Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets. IU’s scientists are developing state-of-the-art instrumentation for remotely placed ice sheet sensors. The Polar Grid partnership links the real-time acquisition of ice sheet data with experts who can use it to understand the rapid global climate changes challenging our planet.
Conclusion
IU researchers are not only breaking records, they are helping to solve some of the world’s most significant problems. That is the mission of a great public research university. It is a mission IU takes very seriously and carries out very successfully.
