URI Economic Impact Report - Autumn 2020

URI RESEARCH IMPACTING THE ENVIRONMENT IN RHODE ISLAND URI researchers examine important issues such as how plant and animal populations adapt to warmer seasonal patterns in the Bay: • Engineering faculty and staff are creating innovative sensors that can detect potentially harmful nutrients at limits lower than what’s now commercially possible. • Oceanographers across the state are developing novel models that will predict changes in coastal environments similar to a weather forecast. Such work aims to better inform state leaders to make policy decisions on how to maintain a healthy Narragansett Bay for all users. • The Rhode Island Bay Observatory, for example, is a custom array of marine instruments that monitors food web dynamics from the bay floor to the catch in a fishing vessel. • The observatory serves as a testbed for new marine sensors, all collecting data that is publicly accessible through the Rhode Island Data Discovery Center.

Major awards in the past year included • $4 million from the NSF as part of a five-year project to study the health of Narragansett Bay, which is vital to tourism, fisheries, and recreation. • $4.4 million from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as part of a five-year effort to increase the state’s capacity to perform biomedical research. • $1.5 million from the NIH as part of a five-year investigation of drinking water contamination.

AWARD DOLLARS FROM SELECTED SOURCES, FY12 AND FY19

The economic benefits of URI’s research resonate throughout the state. In 2019, expenditure of research dollars received by URI totaled $87.4 million. Using an industry-accepted multiplier calculation developed at the University of California, these expenditures had a total economic impact of $166 million on the Rhode Island economy (Kantor & Whalley, 2014).

Rhode Island NSF EPSCoR’s current $19 million grant awarded in 2017, the Rhode Island Consortium for Coastal Ecology Assessment, Innovation and Modeling, combined with $3.8 million in matching funds from the Rhode Island Science and Technology Advisory Council, has for the past three years provided significant research funding, inter-disciplinary collaboration opportunities, and professional development training for students and faculty at the University of Rhode Island and seven other institutions of higher education across the state. Having the latest tools is key to effective research on Narragansett Bay’s changing ecosystems, and the Consortium is dedicating millions of dollars to bringing this needed equipment into facilities across the state.

Granting Agency

2012

2019

Percent change

National Science Foundation

$16.1 M $29.6 M $9.3 M $5.1 M $7.1 M $6.6 M $7.8 M $0.8 M

$19.4 M $18.5 M $10.9 M $6.1 M $8.0 M $6.0 M $5.1 M $3.6 M

21

US Dept Health & Human Services

(38)

US Aid for Intl Development

17 20 13 (9)

US Dept Agriculture

US Dept Defense

US Dept Commerce

State of RI

(35) 350

Private For-Profit

ECONOMIC IMPACT REPORT 2020 7

6 The University of Rhode Island