Context: For twenty years, the National Science Foundation has sought to provide institutions in the EPSCoR states with additional resources toward achieving competitive research capabilities. The emphasis of the EPSCoR program has increasingly been on supporting researchers' abilities to participate in "mainstream" competition for research grants. Since 1996, the AAAS Research Competitiveness Program (RCP) has worked with NSF to provide EPSCoR institutions and researchers with expertise and networking opportunities leading to successful competition. As part of that project, AAAS sponsored historical research by Professor Harry Lambright and prospective policy research by Professor Irwin Feller to determine what combination of program development strategies and leadership can best contribute to the achievement of more competitive research. This conference drew upon lessons learned as part of the AAAS program, to develop policy guidance which can be further developed and implemented at the operational level by NSF, by AAAS and by the state EPSCoR programs toward the end of achieving mainstream research competitiveness.

Conference Program: The conference focused on three selected strategies that have emerged from the RCP program. These are operational strategies that could be pursued at multiple levels as part of a state or university strategic science and technology plan. The three selected strategies are:

· Pursue large-scale proposals
· Support the concentrated pursuit of "niche markets" and emerging research areas
· Develop inter-institutional collaborative proposals

The program included commissioned presentations, focus sessions on each of the three strategies by those who are familiar with their implementation, and working sessions to provide guidance for the pursuit of such strategies by the state, NSF, and AAAS EPSCoR programs.

Pursue large-scale proposals: Beyond the individual-investigator-initiated grants that make up the bulk of a university's research portfolio, there are programs that provide the opportunity to quickly establish national research leadership in a research area. The National Science Foundation's Engineering Research Centers, the Department of Defense lead research contractor awards and the NIH Biomedical Research Institutes awards are examples of this type of opportunity. These are characterized by competitions in which the awardee institution receives a significant boost in status and funding through a single award. In order to receive such an award, the institution needs to structure existing strengths in a fashion that persuasively demonstrates its ability to serve as a world-class center of excellence. Ultimately, this center can serve as a nucleating point for many related research areas.

Support the concentrated pursuit of "niche markets" and emerging research areas: A niche strategy plays to existing institutional strengths and unique opportunities. Emerging research areas are those where the competitive advantages of other institutions are minimized. A combination of geographic and climatic settings, proximity to federal laboratories or major industrial firms, or serendipitous concentrations of outstanding faculty in selected research fields may provide an institution with a research niche which can serve as a springboard to national research competitiveness. By entering the competition for funding at the beginning of a new field of endeavor, an institution encounters a more level playing field, without entrenched competition. The goal is to concentrate institutional resources to be at the forefront of the new wave or in areas where barriers to achieving competitiveness are low.

Develop inter-institutional collaborative proposals: This strategy involves combining the specific expertise of several institutions to overcome the shortcomings of a lack of critical mass in faculty and equipment. Such collaboration offers opportunities for faculty and institutions to participate in important and large-scale research undertakings that they could not successfully pursue themselves. New information technologies can support such collaborations effectively. Whether the collaborative teams exist as a permanent or transitional arrangement, the net outcome is higher productivity and reputation for the participating universities and their faculties than would otherwise be the case.

Questions? If you have further questions, please contact Scott Hauger at AAAS by phone at (202) 326-6452, by fax at (202) 289-4950 or by email at shauger@aaas.org