John Wiley calls it a game of King of the Mountain."" As anyone who has played this competitive game as a child knows, it ends with a distinct winner and loser: the players push each other until the winner remains at the top of the hill and the losers fall to the bottom.
UW-Madison, caught in a game of King of the Mountain, faces the possibility of losing its position as one of the top research universities. However, in 2010 a new addition to the university will make it a stronger competitor.
To maintain its top-five status, UW-Madison will open the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery, a center for interdisciplinary research, to strengthen its place as a top research university. The institute, located on the 1300 block of University Avenue, will contain a private sector, the Morgridge Institute for Research and a public sector, the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery.
""We have to constantly fight to stay [in the top five],"" said Wiley, interim director for the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery.
Studies by the National Research Foundation reveal UW-Madison is consistently ranked in the top five in research among approximately 200 research universities across the nation.
Although UW-Madison has kept this position since 1988, the university faces approximately 50 strong competitors with similar capacities to produce significant research dollars and expenditures, according to Wiley.
Marsha Seltzer, former interim director of the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, wrote in the 2007 proposal for the institute that the research conducted there would lead to new biomedical treatments and technological applications.
""Something like the WID and MIR are consciously designed to help make sure that we maintain a competitive edge and continue to compete well for these funds,"" Wiley said.
One danger to UW-Madison's top research status, however, is that the research conducted separately in biotechnology, nanotechnology and information technology will run into problems that cannot be solved unless there is similar progress in the other two technologies, according to Wiley.
To offset this, the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery will combine the three technologies in its research. ""Putting them together and allowing them to work together on advancing frontiers seems like a way to accelerate progress,"" Wiley said.
With roughly 12 million square feet of research space already on campus, the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery will not primarily impact the campus by adding more research space, but by adding a more unique research space.
According to Wiley, this research facility will not only be the first to combine biotechnology, nanotechnology and information technology, but the first to incorporate the humanities and arts in scientific research.
""These technologies are making such fundamental changes and will in the future make such fundamental changes,"" Wiley said. ""We're convinced that it's important to include social scientists and humanists in the work so that we have a good understanding of the social and societal impacts of the technology.""
The Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery will provide students an opportunity to improve their school's ranking among the top research universities.
""We'll have lots of jobs for undergraduates,"" Wiley said. ""We'll have lots of graduate students involved. They'll be doing their research in an area of the building.""
David Schwartz, professor of chemistry and genetics, is one of the applicants to be one of the five tenured faculty members leading research projects in the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery.
""Where the scientific excitement is, where the advancement happens is at the interface,"" Schwartz said. ""I think the infrastructure that's going to be put in place is going to especially allow graduate students to work at those interfaces and hopefully receive training that will help them work at these interfaces.""
Sangtae Kim, the executive director for the Morgridge Institute for Research, agrees that the structure of the research will allow for the most productive scientific discoveries.
""Multi-disciplinary collaborations are foundational to advancing biomedical solutions to the most urgent challenges in human health,"" Kim said, adding that the twin institutes will enhance UW-Madison's ranking by increasing research activity on campus.
The type of research conducted in the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery is not the only aspect of the institute contributing to UW-Madison's top research status.
According to Laura Heisler, Director of Programming for the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery will broaden the scientific community on campus through the Town Center, the ground floor of the building.
""We intend to have a broad array of activities, many of which will bring together researchers from these disciplines with scientists in non-traditional ways,"" Heisler said.
This includes ""jargon-free talks"" on scientific topics for the campus community and competitions that involve arts, music, theater, science and engineering students to produce exhibits and performances.
""Our hope is that everyone will want to come for an excellent meal, a warm setting in which to meet a colleague [or] a seminar,"" Heisler said.
Schwartz believes that the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery are structured in a way that elicits the best research. After working at the interface of chemistry, biology and physical science and computer science for 20 years, Schwartz has high hopes for research at the interface of disciplines.
""It's really great seeing new infrastructure on campus that is really trying to emphasize all of this,"" Schwartz said. ""Time and time again the action, the scientific action, the breakthroughs, the excitement happens at the interface.""
The heightened loss of prominent faculty members on campus in the past few years has also left UW-Madison vulnerable in its research capacities.
UW-Madison's position as a top research institution depends on maintaining an experienced faculty because the faculty decides the institution's curriculum and research agenda and influences the admission of staff and students.
""If you've got first-rate faculty, they demand and retain first-rate staff and first-rate students,"" Wiley said. ""Everything depends on the quality of the people so, in a university, it usually starts with the faculty.""
One goal of the institute, Wiley explained, is to help overturn the faculty losses.
""We've got a reputation as being a place that does collaboration and interdisciplinary work particularly well and effectively, and that enables us to attract faculty, even when we can't always pay top salary,"" Wiley said.
Heisler agreed, expressing her view of the institute as a recruitment tool to bring prominent researchers to UW-Madison.
""One of the hopes for MIR ... is to create opportunities for visiting scholars and people at advanced stages of their career to come and retool, whether for a yearlong sabbatical or for a month,"" Heisler said. ""We hope to collaborate with the new Union South, which will have hotel space, to help bring such temporary guests to the Institutes.""
UW-Madison's reputation for collaborative and interdisciplinary work has helped the university remain among the top five research universities.
According to Wiley, the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery will be the ""icing on the cake"" for this reputation.
""Scientists and mathematicians and computer scientists ... work in teams now,"" Schwartz agreed. ""This is how modern science operates now.""
