II. The UH System - Federal Funding Requests
Alliance for NanoHealth
Nanotechnology, the art of manipulating materials on an atomic or molecular scale, is considered to be one of the most important research fields in the nation. The Alliance for NanoHealth is a collaborative enterprise working to improve biology, medicine, public health and physical science by developing nanoscale engineering devices that may lead to treatments or even cures for complex human diseases (e.g., heart disorders, cancer, diabetes, stroke, and infection). The University of Houston is one of the founding members of the Alliance for NanoHealth. Other member institutions include Baylor College of Medicine, the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Rice University, the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, and the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. In FY 2005, the Alliance for NanoHealth received $7.4 million from the U.S. Department of Defense, of which $2 million went to the University of Houston to outfit research laboratories in our new science and engineering research building. For FY 2007, the Alliance for NanoHealth requests $20 million from federal sources.
Texas Air Quality Study II
Over the next few years, Texas must develop plans to control eight-hour ozone for all of the major urban areas in the state, as well as plans for reducing haze in the state’s national parks. Our scientific understanding of these air quality challenges is still elementary. TexAQS II will provide the necessary scientific investigations into these key air quality issues to ensure successful clean air policies over the next decade. The study area will cover the eastern half of Texas and will involve all of the major Texas universities.
TexAQS II will build upon the successful year 2000 study (TexAQS-2000) that has advanced the state of air quality science in Texas beyond expectations. The key findings are already leading to more effective control policies that address the root causes of ozone and haze in the Houston region. By 2010, these new and other science-based policies are expected to reduce the economic burden of the ozone plan by over $2 billion per year, save 65,000 jobs, and save $580 million per year in tax revenue associated with continued economic growth. With a much larger study region (the eastern half of Texas vs. the Houston region), TexAQS II is expected to yield tremendous economic benefits for Texas.
Federal funding of $10 million is being sought by a consortium of Texas research institutions, including the University of Houston, the University of Texas, Texas A&M University, Rice University, the Texas Air Research Center (TARC), the Houston Advanced Research Center (HARC), and the Texas Environmental Research Consortium (TERC), as well as the Greater Houston Partnership. This funding will leverage both state and private resources for the project.
Bay Area Houston Technology and Education Center
UH-Clear Lake is a founding member of the Bay Area Houston Technology and Education Center (BAHTEC), whose mission is to support the regional bio- and technology industry through business acceleration; education, research and workforce development; and community development. Other partners include the Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership, NASA’s Johnson Space Center, San Jacinto College District, and the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. BAHTEC achieves its mission by pooling and leveraging resources to accelerate technology transfer, small business development, and workforce training. For the current fiscal year, BAHTEC has been awarded $1 million from federal sources to support business acceleration and workforce development. For FY 2007, we are seeking an additional $4 million to expand the support to companies and workers from across the region.
Southwest Public Safety Technology Center
The Southwest Public Safety Technology Center (SWTC) at the University of Houston is funded through a $4 million grant from the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) National Law Enforcement & Corrections Technology Centers program. The center (1) develops public safety technology test beds comprised of participating public safety entities and public safety organizations, providing a forum in which to identify and verify public safety technology requirements; (2) serves as a test site for a national academic consortium to conduct public safety technology research and development; (3) commercializes new public safety technologies through the creation of partnerships with industry; and (4) provides technology assistance (TA) to law enforcement community through its TA Division located at the Sheriffs' Association of Texas (SAT) in Austin.
The center addresses regional and national issues ranging from traffic congestion to emergency evacuation, from environmental impacts to terrorist attacks, from flood control to emergency medical response, and from collective governing across judiciary boundaries to disaster relief. SWTC staff made important contributions to the FEMA disaster relief centers after Hurricane Katrina and to the joint NIJ and SAT relief efforts in East Texas after Hurricane Rita. It is also providing the technology leadership at the Houston Port Security Steering Council and planning the regional information technology infrastructure. By partnering with SAT and other NIJ centers, SWTC has also launched a number of border security projects ranging from communication interoperability to crime mapping along the Texas-Mexico border. The center is making Houston and the southwest region a national test bed and showcase for public safety technology. For FY 2007, the University of Houston requests $5 million from the National Institute of Justice to continue the R&D conducted by the Southwest Public Safety Technology Center.
Title VII Funding for Geriatric Education
The State of Texas has the fourth largest number of older Americans in the nation. And while we are high in number, we are also high in poverty. The vulnerability of relatively large numbers of older Texans can be mitigated with access to health care professionals who are well-trained in geriatric medicine and gerontological social services. The University of Houston requests that Title VII funding of $31.5 million for geriatric education be restored. Doing so will enable the training of geriatric and gerontological health care professionals needed to care for older citizens. As a result of Title VII funding, over 150 students have chosen and obtained graduate education through the establishment of the Gerontology Concentration at the UH Graduate College of Social Work. These students are now alumni leading personal care homes, hospices, cancer hospitals, etc. They facilitate Medicare prescription drug coverage for older Texans, collaborate with geriatricians and geriatric nurse practitioners on patient care teams, and provide protection to elder victims of abuse, neglect, and exploitation. The support these professionals received through the Texas Consortium of Geriatric Education Centers (TCGEC) – due to Title VII funding – was instrumental to their pursuit of this career path.
Center for Life Sciences Technology
Biotechnology and life sciences research represent two of the most important components of the Houston economy, and the Biotechnology and Life Sciences Industry Cluster is one of six industries that the Texas Governor has identified as offering the best promise for economic growth for Texas. In part, the success of this industry cluster depends on the existence of a highly-skilled technical workforce. In fact, life science related employment in the region and Texas are expected to grow significantly in the next five to ten years. The U.S. Department of Labor identifies the overarching workforce issues in the biotechnology sector as recruitment, basic education, and task-oriented training. The University of Houston must play a key role in addressing these issues.
The Center for Life Sciences Technology will work through a consortium of universities, community colleges, and the private sector to address the education and training skill sets needed in the biotechnology and life sciences workforce. A continuum of training and education programs will be coordinated and delivered for the workforce. A web portal will be created for access to biotechnology training opportunities, industry internships, career information, and short course certification. The center will track the life sciences biotechnology enterprise, identifying evolving industry education and training needs. It will identify existing academic resources and workforce programs in life sciences technology that can support the industry’s competitiveness. And it will connect with the life sciences industry sectors involved in research, development, commercialization, manufacturing, production and distribution.
Investment in education and training must be expanded if the greater Houston/upper Gulf Coast region and Texas are to be able to sustain growth in the biotechnology and life sciences industry. The programs created by the Center for Life Sciences Technology will meet the needs of industry cluster organizations, they will be attractive to companies that may wish to relocate to Texas, and they will increase the region’s global competitiveness in biotechnology and life sciences research. To develop the Center for Life Sciences Technology, the University of Houston as part of the Urban Serving Universities initiative, requests $1 million from federal sources.
Texas Commercial Space Partnership
The Texas Commercial Space Partnership (TCSP) develops technologies that support the national human and robotic space exploration program to the Moon, Mars, and beyond, while also supporting private sector commercialization of those technologies. Led by the University of Houston Center for Advanced Materials in partnership with the Space Technology Center and the Center for Space Power (both at Texas A&M University), Texas industry and the Johnson Space Center, TCSP integrates many of the state’s unique technology strengths in a consortium of universities, industries, and NASA. TCSP’s work will be driven by the Texas aerospace industry’s needs for technologies crucial to NASA’s space exploration vision, as well as the dual use of those technologies in the private sector.
Current TCSP space-related science and technology efforts critical to successful and cost effective space exploration include space manufactured solar cells, micro fuel cells, high-efficiency solar cells, 3-D camera imaging, energy storage flywheel, and structural monitoring and control systems. TCSP products under development represent multi-billion dollar markets. Small incursions into these markets by Texas industries producing TCSP products imply major economic impact. For example, the commercialization of laser-based chemical sensors can impact the $5-billion sensor market. The micro fuel cell (for extended spacesuit power) will impact the $2-billion-plus lithium battery market (for use in portable electronic equipment). High efficiency solar cells can impact the current $1-billion solar cell market. The ultra-high resolution 3-D camera can impact the fledgling remote diagnosis medical market. And flywheel energy storage can impact the $5-billion-plus peak power market.
Partnership commercializations over the past six years include five spin-off companies in Texas with over 160 high-tech jobs and more than $250 million of economic impact from federal and industry funding for product development. Continued job development in Texas will occur from the TCSP in two specific areas, advancement of the manned space program at NASA-JSC and its associated impact on the Houston economy, and local industry commercializing TCSP products for private sector use. Successful transition of TCSP technologies to government and private markets will result in many tens to hundreds of new high-tech jobs in Texas.
In addition to research and development, TCSP also pursues an important education and outreach agenda. TCSP partners have active programs with public schools that bring students into research environments and allow them to see the beauty of science and engineering as it pertains to space.
The Texas Commercial Space Partnership presents a unique opportunity for the nation to advance its space exploration programs, to advance Texas and U.S. economic development from new technologies, and to bring a broader spectrum of students into the exciting arena of space. The full establishment of TCSP under federal funds will bring major benefits to NASA, to Texas, and to the nation’s space program. To do so we request directed federal funding of $6 million.
High Temperature Electrochemistry Center
The University of Houston proposes the creation of a new High Temperature Electrochemistry Center (HiTEC-UH) on campus. HiTEC-UH would support and expand upon the work of the existing High Temperature Electrochemistry Center at Pacific Northwest National Laboratories (PNNL), a research collaboration focused on the science and engineering needed to accomplish the U.S. Department of Energy’s vision for future energy production. HiTEC is managed by the National Energy Technology Laboratory and PNNL and includes core research activities at PNNL and HiTEC satellite centers located at universities. The HiTEC mission is to provide multidisciplinary research leading to advanced electrochemical technologies that minimize environmental consequences of using fossil fuels in energy production.
HiTEC-UH would be a separate division within The Texas Center for Superconductivity at the University of Houston (TCSUH), benefiting from TCSUH’s extensive facilities and other infrastructure for materials synthesis and characterization, as well as the internationally recognized expertise of its faculty in high temperature superconductivity research and development. HiTEC-UH will initiate new and expand existing programs in HiTEC areas of interest, including solid oxide fuel cell electrodes, high temperature water electrolysis, ion transport membranes, thin film ionic devices, and catalytic reforming. To develop HiTEC-UH, the University of Houston requests $1.5 million per year for five years from the U.S. Department of Energy.
Consortium for Nanomaterials for Aerospace Commerce and Technology
For the past four years, the University of Houston has partnered with several University of Texas System institutions (including UT-Austin), Rice University and the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) in the Strategic Partnership for Research in NanoTechnology (SPRING). Federal funding for SPRING will end in FY 2006, and after extensive discussions the partners propose to transform the current organization into a new program, the Consortium for Nanomaterials for Aerospace Commerce and Technology (CONTACT). CONTACT will have two main goals, to ensure our national air superiority through nanomaterials research and development, and to commercialize nanomaterials developed by scientists from Texas universities.
CONTACT will achieve these goals by leveraging strong collaborative relationships among the consortium members and focusing on the most critical aerospace technology development needs of AFRL and the aerospace industry. Through collaborations among partner institutions and the aerospace commercial sector, CONTACT will develop leading-edge nanotechnology applications faster and better than could be achieved individually at each institution. Partnerships with leading aerospace companies will ensure that consortium inventions are efficiently transferred into the systems being developed for mission-critical defense needs. A key component will be the development of a broad network of commercialization partners, including small and medium-size businesses who will amplify consortium capabilities through monetary, in-kind and personnel contributions. Together, these efforts will lead to important economic, aerospace (both military and civilian), and security related technological breakthroughs.
To develop CONTACT, the University of Houston requests $17.5 million from the U.S. Department of Defense. Funding will leverage existing infrastructure and enable research, development and technology transfer that addresses three critical capabilities for the Air Force: power on demand, reconfigurable full-spectrum detectors, and interdisciplinary fundamental nanoscience and engineering. Prior funding has enabled major R&D progress towards building a world-class infrastructure across Texas for nanotechnology research and development. CONTACT will continue these critical improvements.
UH-Victoria DNA Laboratory
The Victoria region is the center for two regional hospital systems serving a large community of over 15 counties in South Texas. Although there is very good health care available in the area, there is very little health care support. Specifically, testing for neonatal genetics, hereditary genetic disease, and DNA identification (among other genetic tests) is not available. Instead, these tests are conducted in biotechnology laboratories outside Texas. UH-Victoria has a strong program in the biological sciences with a core in molecular biology and a graduate concentration in bioinformatics. In partnership with DNA Research Genomics, Inc., UH-Victoria is working to establish a DNA laboratory that would provide a solution to the genotyping needs of the university’s 15-county service area. In addition, the public/private partnership would facilitate the commercialization of technology developed by UH-Victoria scientists. To support this venture, UH-Victoria requests $1,748,000 from federal sources to construct and equip the laboratory.
Scott Street Urban Development Initiative and Parking Garage
Adjacent to both the University of Houston and Texas Southern University, the Scott Street Corridor between Elgin and Holman is a site for planned urban redevelopment, including expanded retail/service operations and a new multi-modal transit complex through the Houston Metropolitan Transit Authority (METRO). The transit complex will serve as a terminus for buses, the southeast light rail line, ridesharing and carpool programs in this low-to-moderate income, highly diverse neighborhood. As part of this redevelopment initiative, the University of Houston is planning a parking garage near the intersection of Scott and Holman. The garage will serve the parking needs of Houstonians utilizing the transit complex, as well as facilitate transportation to and from campus for UH students. The anticipated total project cost will exceed $30 million. The University of Houston requests $15 million from federal sources.
Offshore Wind Research and Development Center
Wind energy is the fastest growing source of energy in the world today. Installed wind power has grown at an average of greater than 30% per annum over the last decade. Within 50 nautical miles of the U.S. coast there is greater renewable wind potential than the nation’s entire electric capacity. In addition to its abundance, offshore wind has other advantages, including better resource quality, proximity to coastal population centers, more options for transmission, less grid connection costs, limited land use, and potentially less visual impact and related aesthetic concerns.
The University of Houston conducts leading research on offshore engineering and has long-standing working relationships with Houston’s offshore industry. The Texas General Land Office (GLO) and State Energy Conservation Office (SECO) have seen the business opportunity and importance of offshore wind energy in the Gulf of Mexico. With the support of the GLO and SECO, UH has organized a consortium of Texas universities and research institutions to work on offshore wind development, including Texas A&M, UT-Austin, Texas Tech, West Texas A&M and the Houston Advanced Research Center (HARC). On behalf of this consortium, the University of Houston requests federal funding to launch the Offshore Wind Research and Development Center through the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).
DOE has targeted the need for extensive research and development on low-speed and offshore wind. To do so will require the creation of a new facility or dramatic expansion of an existing one. The consortium believes that DOE would be well served having this facility in Texas. Given our scientific and engineering expertise, the fact that most of the large equipment for low speed and offshore wind resources enter the U.S. through the Port of Houston, and that some of the best offshore wind resources are in the Gulf of Mexico, it makes sense to house an offshore wind R&D center in the state.
