With the pot of government research money in danger of shrinking, Stanford University has embarked on a program to fund graduate research fellowships through private donations, a move that other universities may copy.
Stanford President Gerhard Casper announced this week that the university had collected $108 million of a targeted endowment of $200 million for the effort.
When Casper made the announcement at a news conference Tuesday, he was flanked by two of the donors who are making the program possible: Robert Bass, the chairman of the Stanford University Board of Trustees, and John Morgridge, chairman of Cisco Systems.
Bass and Morgridge, along with their wives, Anne Bass and Tashia Morgridge, are two of the five donor groups who together put up the first $100 million. The David and Lucile Packard Foundation also is a donor for the first $100 million, as are two anonymous donors.
The money will be used to fund 300 three-year fellowships, beginning with 100 this fall. The payout from the $200 million endowment will be $10 million a year.
By comparison, Stanford receives $387 million a year in federal research grants, not including funding for the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC), which is a Department of Energy facility.
But Casper said federal funds for university research are expected to decline between 14 and 18 percent by the year 2002, the year targeted for a balanced federal budget. "That will be heavy hit, indeed," Casper said.
Casper called the $108 million "a heartening endorsement of the new course we have set." Other private universities may follow suit, he added, given the likely reduction in federal research grants.
Casper said he got the idea for privately financed research grants from George Shultz four years ago. The former secretary a state, a Hoover Institution distinguished fellow, asked Casper what was Stanford's most important problem at the time. The uncertainty of federal research funding, Casper replied. And Shultz suggested a fund-raising campaign.
Bass and Morgridge said they gave money because Stanford's health is key to the success of Silicon Valley.
"The motors of the economy are fueled by this research and development (at Stanford)," Bass said.
Morgridge said Silicon Valley "is an unique economic miracle" that keeps reinventing itself every decade, and Stanford has been key to every phase of the valley's success. "All of our companies are predicated on very talented human capital," Morgridge said.
Stanford has already received $8 million of the second $100 million it needs for the fellowships program.
--Don Kazak
"The motors of the economy are fueled by this research and development (at Stanford)." @id:--Robert Bass, chairman of Stanford's Board of Trustees
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