By Megan Finnerty
Asst. Campus Editor

Research, one of the foundations of Purdue, has undergone significant changes during Steven Beering's term as the president of Purdue in the last 18 years, in part because he has made it a priority.

"Creative scholarship is the lifeblood of every major university," Beering said. "We have grown in volume and sophistication. We do research for the purpose of educating our students and for the discovery of new ideas, products and processes."

There have been marked structural changes in the way research is conducted and in the topics on which it is conducted, according to Peter Dunn, assistant vice president for research.

Although some of these changes have not occurred specifically because of Beering, they are issues he and his administration have had to adapt to in his years at Purdue.

"There has been a shift from predominantly single investigators pursuing individual projects to an increasing proportion of collaborative projects involving multiple investigators and a growth in the number of formal (research) centers," he said.

Another change, according to Dunn, is that research used to be focused primarily on discipline-based concepts like chemistry, biology and computer science, but has now become more interdisciplinary — involving collaborators drawn from many academic fields.

Many research projects done at Purdue have shifted from being narrowly defined; specialized research projects have gone to larger scale projects addressing broad, complex societal problems, said Dunn.

He also said that in the last several years there has been a dramatic increase in the demand for accountability among the public for research supported by tax-derived funds. Similarly, public accountability for how research is performed has increased.

"For example, there has been an increased public awareness and concern over objectivity in research and the potential for conflicts of interest, concern over human and vertebrate animal subjects in research and concern over the environmental impacts of research like potentially hazardous wastes," Dunn said.

Other changes in research at Purdue during Beering's years have been increases in sponsored program expenditures and annual sponsored program awards. A sponsored program is any funded activity where the money comes from an outside entity such as a corporation, a foundation or the government.

In 1983-84 Purdue spent $63 million, but in 1998-99, Purdue spent $143 million. Additionally, the awards have grown at almost the same rate. The schools receiving the largest share of money from sponsored program awards during Beering's presidency have been the schools of Engineering, Science and Agriculture.

Research has not only changed at Purdue, but it has grown during the last 18 years because of many different efforts by Beering and by people like Dunn and others in the Office of Research Administration.

"Over the past decade we have encouraged more faculty members to be involved and we have used gift monies in providing infrastructure," said Beering in an explanation of how he has tried to develop research during his years at Purdue.

According to Dunn, Beering has been a strong and persistent advocate for research at Purdue, having impact both at the state and federal level.

"One measure of this impact is the growth in the research infrastructure at Purdue including both the addition of new research buildings such as Whistler Hall, the Materials Science and Engineering Building, the Food Science Building and the program of constant repair and renovation of existing buildings to maintain our buildings as state-of-the-art research facilities," said Dunn.

Research at Purdue has also grown off-campus, in the form of the Purdue Research Park. The park, established in 1961, is a real estate holding of the Purdue Research Foundation to create an environment in which private businesses and industries could collaborate with Purdue.

Jeffrey Wilson, senior vice president and treasurer of the Purdue Research Foundation, said that without Beering, many developments at the park wouldn't have been possible.

"Beering has been instrumental," he said. "In 1993, we started building the technology center as an incubator dedicated to help start-up companies that were being developed out of the University that allowed them to share facilities and rent flexible space."

Dunn said the technology center was filled in 1998, and in 1999, construction on the Innovations Center began. This building serves as the next step for companies who want more autonomy and less assistance.

"We spent a lot of money investing in the future out here — $5 million and $3.2 million on the different buildings respectively — and without (Beering) being a proponent of that, those buildings would never have been built," he said.