NEWS

This morning, University of New Mexico President Bob Frank sent out his weekly newsletter to the UNM community. This week featured stories about innovation coming out of higher education institutions in order to drive the country forward, and how research universities like UNM play a role in the country's economic competitiveness. New Mexico EPSCoR was featured as one of the sources of UNM innovation. President Frank writes, "The education and scientific research that takes place here contributes to the foundation for innovation and sustainable long-term economic growth, and produces discoveries that improve health, fuel new technologies, address our energy needs and environmental challenges, and position us to better comprehend the global community in which we live." President Frank's mention of NM EPSCoR includes the most recent WC-WAVE grant as well as the main five-year, $20 million Track 1 grant. Read the full statement about NM EPSCoR below.

NM EPSCoR Grants Benefit Sustainability and Intellectual LeadershipFederally funded research is critical not only to areas of national importance but also at the state level. UNM is a part of the our state’s Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (NM EPSCoR), which is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), and strives to make the state and its research universities competitive with the national research agenda through improving the New Mexico’s scientific capacity and a competitive research infrastructure. UNM has been awarded two EPSCoR grants that will continue to build the state of New Mexico's research capacity in water resource modeling, and renewable energy and energy efficiency. This month, UNM was awarded a $6 million grant for water resource research. In partnership with the Nevada System of Higher Education and the University of Idaho, we will create a western consortium dedicated to advancing watershed science, workforce development and education. Given the severe drought and wildfires that have affected New Mexico, this grant will be critical to aiding researchers to better understand and address the environmental challenges we face. UNM also received a $20 Million EPSCoR grant earlier this year that will help to build New Mexico's research capacity in renewable energy and energy efficiency. We are partnering with colleges and universities statewide, as well as our national labs and other key stakeholders to focus on ways to improve efficiency of sustainable energy resource utilization and to minimize environmental impacts of uranium mining and oil and gas production. Congratulations to University Libraries Professor William Michener, who is the UNM principal investigator on both grants, along with Mary Jo Daniel, associate director of the New Mexico EPSCoR program, who is the co-PI on the energy grant. Together, we are working to improve the research, infrastructure, and the human talent necessary for New Mexico to be competitive and successful.