When the University of Nebraska-Lincoln purchased the State Fair Grounds to turn into Innovation Campus, the university touted the move as a big step for growth in the state. But much of Innovation Campus remains a mystery to the student body. Many still have no idea what purpose it will serve and how, or even if, students will be a part of it. Also, with our move to the Big Ten, students may wonder how Innovation Campus compares with similar programs around the conference and if that competition may change the focus of the research campus.
May your fears be assuaged. Innovation Campus is absolutely a positive step for the university as it heads into the Big Ten, and it will benefit both faculty and students alike.
The purpose of Innovation Campus is to partner university expertise with progressive companies to develop technologies that will benefit Nebraska and the world. While Innovation Campus is similar to other programs in the Big Ten, it will be a larger facility and will have a stronger focus on specific issues of importance to Nebraska: food, fuel and water.
Innovation Campus will be built in phases. Phase I, currently underway, will focus on scientific efforts in food, fuel and water. This phase will see construction of three buildings: a USDA research facility, a life sciences facility and a renovated 4-H building. The USDA facility will be the new home for the USDA programs that are currently scattered across the university and will allow for the addition of more researchers. The life sciences facility will be a UNL building for expansion on our current capabilities in that area. The 4-H building will be the commercial and conference hub of Innovation Campus. It will include a food court and retail space, as well as offices for campus administration. The building will also contain a conference center, which could be used by officials and Registered Student Organizations depending upon availability.
Once complete, these structures will house private companies looking to partner with the university. This will include everything from multinational corporations creating a lab on campus to small startups basing all of their operations from the facility. The goal is to fill the entire campus with companies in the next 20 to 25 years.
Faculty from UNL can work directly with these companies or simply provide consultations, depending on what the companies seek to accomplish. For example, a UNL food scientist might work with Cargill (if they were a company on the campus) on a project to make steaks juicier when they get to the grocer. The food scientist may head up the project, research a component of the project or simply be a consultant for Cargill's work. This will allow the innovation faculty to be involved in exciting research opportunities and could attract some of the nation's top scientists to the university.
Students will also play an integral role in Innovation Campus. They will benefit from faculty who integrate real-world experience into the classroom, exposing students to cutting-edge technology and ideas. UNL students would also have the opportunity to collaborate with faculty and work on these projects with experts in the field. This will allow students to interact with the top researchers in both the private and public sectors. There is a potential for students to have responsibility for entire components of projects, similar to how the UCARE program functions.
Students could be involved beyond the sciences as well. For example, a business student might get involved developing the business plan for a new product being developed at Innovation Campus. There could also be opportunities in graphic design, product promotion and so forth. All these opportunities will provide students with real-world experience, as well as the possibility for careers within the companies on Innovation Campus.
Many students want to know if Innovation Campus will cause an increase in tuition. This will not be the case. To quote Vice Chancellor Ronnie Green, "We can't ask students to pay for building; this has to be something that pays for itself."
Our move to the Big Ten conference might play a role in some of the partnerships created on Innovation Campus. Many of the schools in the Big Ten have ongoing research in the areas of food, fuel and water, and may be good partners for Innovation Campus projects. Also, Penn State, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin have facilities similar to Innovation Campus, all with the goal of connecting public and private research efforts.
Though UNL's Innovation Campus will be similar to these projects, it will also be larger, and our scope during Phase I will be focused more on agricultural science than the facilities at other Big Ten schools. This comes as no surprise considering the importance of agriculture to our state, as well as the opportunity presented by having so much land available in one location.
While some Nebraskans still may have hard feelings about the State Fair moving, what's done is done. It's important to look forward and see projects that will benefit our state become a reality. Innovation Campus is an exciting opportunity for Nebraska to be a hotbed of cutting-edge research and is something we can all look forward to developing in the near future.
Jake Geis is a second year veterinary student. Reach him at jakegeis@dailynebraskan.com.
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