UC Davis girds for 10% cut in research funds

By Crystal Ross O'Hara/Enterprise staff writer

While California legislators play politics with the budget, UC Davis is bracing itself for a 10 percent cut in state research funding.

As the recipient of more than half of the campus' state research funds, the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences will likely be the hardest hit. The college receives approximately $37 million in state research funding, most of it for research projects conducted by the state Agricultural Experiment Station, housed at A&ES.

Neal Van Alfen, dean of the college, said Wednesday that A&ES hasn't recouped losses from the budget cuts of the early 1990s.

"We understand the budget is in a crisis situation," he said. "The only question we have is, 'Should it again be the same group that hasn't recovered from the last cuts?' "

Despite UC Davis' enrollment growth, the college is still operating with 7 percent fewer faculty and 8 percent fewer staff members than it had before the 1990s cuts, Van Alfen noted.

The Agricultural Experiment Station includes more than 750 scientists and approximately 1,300 research projects at UCD, UC Riverside and UC Berkeley. The bulk of those projects are conducted at Davis.

Van Alfen said Congress set up agricultural experiment stations in the 1800s at land-grant universities throughout the nation so that the agriculture industry would have broad research support. In modern times, the stations also provide applicable research for the environment as well, he said.

"It is research that assures the quality of our water, the abundance of our water, the quality of our air and the preservation of our natural resources," he said.

Van Alfen said a committee of college administrators has already been formed to look at ways to implement the cuts and will seek input from the campus community at regular meetings over the coming months.

"We can't do the cuts across the board so we're going to have to do a prioritization of programs and we will have to do some consolidation," he said. "That means we're going to have to cut programs."

Van Alfen said the college will strive to maintain the excellence of its research and educational programs despite the looming 10 percent research budget reduction.

A&ES is not the only campus unit to be hit by the cuts. The Division of Biological Sciences will likely lose $350,000. Spending at the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research -- which includes the Bodega Marine Laboratory, the Crocker Nuclear Lab, the Institute of Government Affairs, the John Muir Institute for the Environment and the Center for Image Processing and Integrated Computing -- will be reduced by $600,000.

The School of Veterinary Medicine will likely have to limit requests for research from outside groups and agencies because of an expected $200,000 reduction in state research funds.

Also on the hit list is the School of Medicine's MIND Institute, which studies and treats autism and other neurological disorders. A reduction of $500,000 is expected at the institute, founded in 1998. Despite the cuts, the institute will continue to expand its clinical program as well as clinical research trials. Administrators at the MIND Institute said they plan to leave open positions vacant and look at reducing operating expenses as a way to deal with the budget cut.

In a June 18 letter, Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Virginia Hinshaw asked campus deans and vice chancellors to submit plans for a one-time reduction in their 2002-03 state-funded research budgets by July 15. Hinshaw requested that administrators focus on mitigating immediate impacts on staff by using "carry-forward" funds and salary savings from open positions as well as looking at ways to reassign staff to other positions on campus.

Hinshaw noted that the state is proposing permanent cuts in UC's organized research budget.

"However, I do not believe it is appropriate to assign permanent cuts on this order of magnitude on such short notice," she wrote.

Hinshaw added that she will ask the entire campus to join in developing a plan for implementing permanent reductions effective July 1, 2003.

-- Reach Crystal Ross O'Hara at cohara@davisenterprise.net

Friday, July 5, 2002