West Virginia University’s Board of Governors, meeting via teleconference Friday (March 5), approved $2.335 million in new Research Trust Fund contributions for submission to the state for matching funds, bringing the total approved by the Board to $5.929 million. This was the only item on the Board’s agenda.

The new funding, certified by the WVU Foundation, comes from eight sources, said WVU Provost Michele Wheatly, who presented the gifts and pledges for approval.

The pledges/gifts include:

  • William J. Maier Chair of Research – $1 million
  • George B. Bennett CEMR Research Opportunity Endowment – $1 million
  • James A. & Ruby Romano Dept. of Civil & Environmental Engineering Endowment – $263,182
  • James A. Kent Endowment for Biomedical Engineering – $40,000
  • E. Elizabeth Morgan Cancer Research Endowment – $26,473
  • Schoepp Neuroscience Research Student Support Fund – $5,000
  • Alan Susman Corticobasal Ganglionic Degeneration Research – $500
  • Oleg D. & Valentina P. Jefimenko Physics Fellowship – $200

With this request, which will now be sent to the Vice Chancellor for Science and Research, private and state dollars combined will bring WVU’s total to $11.858 million in investments in key research areas.

In 2008, the state created the Research Trust Fund with an initial appropriation of $50 million ($35 million for WVU, $15 million for Marshall) to leverage public and private investments that will help transform West Virginia’s economy.

WVU is able to tap into the fund to double private gifts that support expansions to research faculty and infrastructure in key areas linked to economic development, health care and job growth. Those areas include energy, nanotechnology, biosciences and biometrics.

The Board’s next regularly scheduled meeting is April 9.

-WVU-

bl/03/05/10

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