Vice Chancellor's Welcome

Research is on the move at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Our external research funding total for fiscal year 2006 reached a record $104.6 million. This $100 million-plus milestone is part of a longer-term positive trend: external research funding has tripled in the last decade. But funding success is only part of our story. More important is the quality and breadth of our research, the degree of collaboration and the new knowledge, creative activity and technologies being generated by UNL faculty. Here are a few of the recent projects that are moving our research forward:

• The new world-class Diocles Laser and Extreme Light Laboratory are positioning Nebraska as a leader in high-field physics and laser research. Read the News Release
• Our Center for Digital Research in the Humanities - one of the nation's leaders in the exciting field of digital scholarship - is expanding our multidisciplinary humanities research campuswide well as with other institutions.
• The U.S. Department of Transportation's Research and Innovative Technology Administration has designated UNL as a regional university transportation center that will lead collaborative efforts to make the highways and railways safer and more efficient.
• In partnership with the Nebraska Public Power District, we've established the Nebraska Center for Energy Sciences Research. This center is encouraging collaborative research to develop renewable domestic energy resources, improve energy efficiency and create economic opportunities for Nebraska and beyond.
• With help of a U.S. Department of Education grant, UNL is teaming with tribal and community colleges to train more Native American and bilingual teachers.
• TekBots are becoming teaching tools through the Silicon Prairie Initiative on Robotics in Information Technology in an NSF-funded collaboration involving UNL engineers at the university's Peter Kiewit Institute and the Omaha Public Schools.
• Scientists in our Nebraska Center for Virology are helping researchers from Zambia and China fight AIDS/HIV through the NIH-funded Fogarty International Program.
• Through the NSF-funded ANDRILL project, UNL scientists are on the ice with an international research team that is drilling deep into Antarctica seeking clues to global climate change. UNL leads a consortium of five U.S. universities that make up the American portion of the multinational project.

As these examples indicate, UNL research truly covers the world from A to Z. The close integration of our research priorities with the university's established programs of excellence drives this success. Strategic investment of university and state funds enables us to support innovative research projects, hire top faculty and provide them with equipment and facilities to achieve their goals. We also are strengthening our commitment to technology and economic development through commercialization of innovative products and processes. Our success benefits our state by creating new jobs and new opportunities for Nebraskans, and a strong research enterprise enhances teaching and widens opportunities for students to participate in research experiences. Research at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln is on the move. I invite you to learn more about us through this Web site.

Prem S. Paul
Vice chancellor for research and economic development