Colleen Fitzgerald, North Dakota State University Vice President for Research and Creative Activity, recently presented the first-year progress of the North Dakota Economic Development Research Fund (EDRF) investments to the EDRF External Advisory Committee. The committee includes Kenton Kaufman, Ph.D., P.E., Mayo Clinic; Paul Steffes, Steffes, LLC; and Kathryn Uhrich, Ph.D., University of California, Riverside.

Uhrich is an alumna of the University of North Dakota (UND) and serves as a board representative for the university. Both Steffes and Kaufman are NDSU alumni. Steffes represents the nine regional/dual mission and 2-year/polytechnic institutions in the state and Kaufman represents NDSU.

“The opportunity to provide the first year’s reporting to the committee gave us another chance to lay out NDSU’s vision and the specific programs we created to leverage the state’s investment through the Economic Diversification Research Fund,” said Fitzgerald. “The committee is an impressive group of individuals and I appreciate the impact they will have on our work.”

The EDRF, established in HB 1003 by the North Dakota Legislature in 2023, aims to ensure that the state economy generates additional revenue streams to stimulate economic growth in the state by innovating new technology, ideas and products; to promote job creation and career and wage growth; to enhance health care outcomes; to address loss of revenue and jobs in communities with economies that depend primarily on the fossil fuel industry; and to provide experiential learning opportunities for students. R1 research institution NDSU received $2.5M to support research endeavors across two years.

Fitzgerald noted that committee members commended the legislature for the visionary language in HB 1003.

NDSU launched the “Innovations to Practice Program,” which focuses on public-private partnerships in strategic research areas through investments into Infrastructure, Experiential Learning (workforce development), Faculty Development and Technology Acceleration Programs. The strategic research areas include food, energy and water security; cybersecurity, computer science and software engineering; life sciences; and entrepreneurship and innovation.

In addition, the institution developed a funding program focused on supporting research collaborations and partnerships between NDSU, UND and a third institution of higher education in the state.

The entire suite of programs is robustly responding to workforce development in North Dakota, through the experiential learning and training opportunities for students in the funded projects in Year One.

“The ND Legislature and Governor Burgum have sparked ideas among our researchers,” Fitzgerald said. “We have invested these funds in programs with the potential to impact the lives of many across the state.”

NDSU’s Office of Research and Creative Activity distributed $1.25 million across 23 projects in five programs:

• The University Collaboration Research Program (UCRP), supporting partnerships among NDSU, UND, and another North Dakota University System or North Dakota Tribal College System institution, funded five projects.
• The Experiential Learning Program (ELP) directly supports students in experiential learning opportunities through internships, undergraduate research opportunities, related training and workshops, and other relevant activities. One ELP project was funded.
• The Technology Acceleration Program (TAP) provides funding with the goal of fast-tracking ideas and technologies toward commercialization through accelerating the development of prototypes and building a minimum viable product in order to validate product ideas during the initial stages of development. Seven TAP projects were funded.
• The Faculty Development Program (FDP) provides funding to increase faculty competitiveness for external funding through interdisciplinary research planning grants that initiate early-stage project development and seed projects that support teams to advance ideas for the development of competitive proposals in pursuit of significant external funding. Nine FDP projects were funded.
• The Infrastructure Program (IP) invests in key university research infrastructure and enables it to be utilized for increased industry collaborations. This program supports acquisition of instrumentation and equipment, and any associated installation services. One IP project was funded.

PROJECTS ALIGNED WITH LEGISLATIVE PRIORITIES

The legislation identified several priorities to guide the funded projects. One priority was to stimulate economic activity in North Dakota through the innovation of new technology, concepts, and products, which resulted in funding for seven projects.

One project focuses on transforming fresh vegetable production in harsh environments. In collaboration with PRAIRIE & Prairie Rose Farm, LLC, researchers are testing the effectiveness of a prototype snow fence that captures solar energy. The project also incorporates the NSF I-Corps program, with students involved in customer discovery to explore the prototype’s market potential.

An additional project under this priority involves the development of a membrane electrochemical reactor prototype for landfill leachate PFAS treatment. This project also contains experiential learning for students, with the group competing in a student design competition for an EPA Phase II grant.

The Legislature also prioritized improving health care outcomes, which led to eight funded projects. These include a collaborative effort with NDSU, UND, and Cankdeska Cikana Community College to study sensors for advanced-stage cancer monitoring, as well as other projects focused on aging, cognitive functioning, and obesity-related diseases.

A priority of providing experiential learning opportunities for students provided learning opportunities for 51 students and two postdoctoral scholars across programs such NDSU’s EXPLORE Undergraduate Research Program. Students received both education and training through innovative research aligned with the university’s strategic priority areas.

In addition to Fitzgerald’s presentation, University of North Dakota Vice President of Research Scott Snyder shared updates on UND’s EDRF programs and Valley City State University professor David DeMuth discussed investments made across the nine regional/dual mission and 2-year/polytechnic institutions in the state.

For more information about specific projects, see:

• Interdisciplinary proposal development initiative on "Hacking Aging" yields innovative digital twin approach to age-related diabetes prevention
• Two Economic Diversification Research Funds projects to study accelerating technologies through wireless test beds for ag and adoption of autonomous trucking 
• TAP Projects Providing Impactful Research Opportunities and Prototype Development 
• NDSU and UND collaborative research projects announced