A celebration 25 years in the making
by Toni Baker
The MCG Research Institute celebrated 25 years of service Oct. 20 as it honored MCG scientists during a dinner at the Belair Conference Center. In what will become an annual tradition, the institute presented a Lifetime Achievement Award, two Distinguished Research Awards, an Emerging Scientist Award and a Mahesh Distinguished Research Award. Awardees were selected by an interdisciplinary panel of MCG researchers.
“As we celebrate the life of the institute, it was natural to also salute our scientists,” said Betty Aldridge, the institute’s executive director. “Our goals and our successes are interwoven. We exist to support their work.”
MCG Research Institute, Inc. supports MCG research initiatives with a “soup to nuts” operation that includes everything from identifying a potential funding source to managing grant money when it arrives. It helps support the Division of Sponsored Program Administration whose staff helps researchers apply for grants, receive notice of grant awards, transfer funds to an account where spending can be monitored, submit financial updates to sponsors and close accounts when the work is done.
The institute also provides funds to help researchers gather pilot data needed to pursue extramural funding and has an incentive program that returns a portion of researchers’ grant dollars as a salary supplement or to support research expenses.
Such
work is possible because the Research Institute receives 21.7 percent of
MCG’s indirect costs, provided by most major research sponsors such as the
NIH. “Indirect cost funds are intended to help support the institution
where the research takes place,” Mrs. Aldridge said. “It’s to cover the
associated costs that are hard to identify directly with projects, such as
electricity, janitorial services, human resources, my office, all of the
general operation and maintenance costs.”
Consequently and fortuitously, as MCG’s research budget grows, so grows the budget – and the work – of the Research Institute.
When it was incorporated in 1980, the institute was basically a one-person operation with a $400,000 budget managing $3.4 million in extramural research funding. When Mrs. Aldridge came eight years ago, extramural funding had reached about $26 million. Today the institute has a $3 million budget and nearly $80 million in research funding.
“I came at the right time, when the NIH budget was doubling,” said Mrs. Aldridge. MCG’s timing was excellent as well with a concerted effort to build research that included identifying thematic areas of focus and a greater emphasis on growing research faculty, space and support. Dr. Matthew J. Kluger, former vice president of research, was recruited in 1999 to drive the efforts. “He built a business plan for research,” Mrs. Aldridge said.
For several years, MCG’s research budget increased in excess of 20-30 percent per year. The most impressive increase was in fiscal year 2003, when NIH funding jumped nearly 43 percent, said Mrs. Aldridge, who’d experienced a similar trajectory at her previous employer, Wayne State University, whose funding went from $11 million to $70 million in about 11 years. At MCG, one of her best moves, she said, has been hiring great people.
Although the NIH budget is now flat, she is unflappable. “We have to know what the trends are. That is what we do,” she said. “I think the money is going to be available differently. I think there is going to be a great focus from NIH on interdisciplinary research and probably bigger projects.” Her office is working to accommodate the changes those projects will require.
And on the day she was interviewed for this article, her office was processing MCG’s biggest single award ever received: a $15 million, five-year grant from the NIH to Dr. Richard A. McIndoe, associate director of the Center for Biotechnology and Genomic Medicine.