Contact: Joe Farris
Mississippi State has climbed to 61st among public universities in science and engineering research.
According to the National Science Foundation's latest figures, the university also ranks 89th among all institutions--public and private--in research and development expenditures for fiscal 1996, the most recent year for which nationwide data are available.
Both the public university and the overall rankings are the highest ever for Mississippi State, which has been among the top100 research institutions for well over a decade. The rankings are reported in the NSF's latest annual edition of "Academic Research and Development Expenditures."
NSF tracks research and development expenditures at about 500 research-producing institutions in the physical and life sciences, engineering, mathematics, computer science, psychology, and social sciences.
The most recent rankings for Mississippi State are based on research and development expenditures of more than $84 million funded by federal, industry, state, and institutional sources. The university's largest concentration of research was in the life sciences category, followed by engineering.
President Malcolm Portera said MSU is aiming for a spot among the nation's top 75 research universities within the next few years. To achieve a complementary goal of membership in the Association of Research Libraries, the university is adding $1 million a year to its library budget for at least the next three years to help reach that status.
"The library is the heart of the academic enterprise and is vital to the support of instructional and research programs," Portera said. "ARL membership is a benchmark that says an institution meets a high standard in providing library resources to its students and faculty."
No Mississippi university is among the 120 in the United States and Canada currently meeting ARL standards.
"Mississippi State's growing stature among the nation's research universities is a tribute to the creativity and productivity of the faculty," Portera said. "We're building on that foundation of strength by investing additional resources in the university's academic infrastructure, including research and service programs, the library, and instructional technology."
A growing research program brings more opportunities for hands-on learning in the laboratory and more exposure to cutting-edge knowledge in the classroom for university undergraduates, he said.
"One of the best things we can do to ensure the quality of undergraduate instruction is to make sure that our faculty members are productive scholars who are current in their fields, and that they create opportunities for students to participate in the discovery and dissemination of knowledge," Portera said.
The NSF report, "Academic Research and Development Expenditures, Fiscal Year 1996," is available on the Internet at www.nsf.gov/sbe/srs/nsf98304/.