Discovery Partners Institute Updates

[UPDATE to the Updates: The News-Gazette had a couple follow up articles on upcoming investments for the DPI projects. One was a quick blurb about funding across the state here and the other was highlighting a couple specific investments here in Champaign County:

Chunk of DPI funds put UI's planned data-sciences hub on fast track
A "world class" data-sciences center for the Urbana-Champaign campus, in the works for more than a year, is on a fast track because of state funding allocated to the University of Illinois for the Discovery Partners Institute and its statewide innovation network.

UI officials say part of the $500 million allocated to the UI will be used to build a $40 million to $50 million state-of-the-art research and classroom facility where Illini Hall now stands, in the heart of Campustown. The 111-year-old brick building will be torn down and replaced with a larger, five-story 60,000- to 80,000-square-foot center.

The DPI funding will also be used to expand the UI Research Park, Chancellor Robert Jones said Wednesday, though officials had few details about that effort.

The two projects represent the first investments in Champaign-Urbana from the $500 million state capital appropriation for the planned DPI research institute in Chicago's South Loop and innovation hubs in other university communities, called the Illinois Innovation Network.

More at the full article here.]

There were a couple updates this week on the Discovery Partners Institute (DPI) project of the University of Illinois System. The first may or may be intended to alleviate concerns that the project will take focus off of the Urbana-Champaign campus and its desires to expand its private-public partnerships towards the new DPI campus in Chicago. From last Saturday's News-Gazette:

UI engineering professor named to lead Discovery Partners Institute
...
President Tim Killeen announced the selection Friday of William Sanders, currently head of the highly ranked Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, as interim head of DPI.

Sanders, who also has directed two campus-wide research centers during his 20-plus years at the university, officially started his new role Aug. 16 pending approval by the Board of Trustees in September. He will earn $387,000 annually, which includes the stipend from his endowed professorship.

Sanders was appointed without a search, which is why his title is “interim,” at least for now.

“The project is moving fast and we needed an experienced leader as soon as possible to help guide it,” said UI spokesman Jan Dennis.

Killeen said Sanders will be in charge of all aspects of launching and operating DPI, a public-private research institute intended as the cornerstone of the proposed Illinois Innovation Network...

Faculty members, state legislators and community leaders have expressed concerns about DPI draining resources from the Urbana campus. [Chancellor Robert Jones] said the fact that Sanders hails from Urbana “doesn’t hurt,” but it’s not “the major driver.”

Full article with all sorts of biographical and detailed project information here. Today the News-Gazette had even more information on the status of the project:

Killeen to legislators: Discovery Partners Institute still work in progress
The University of Illinois could receive $50 million to $100 million from the state for the proposed Discovery Partners Institute during fiscal 2019, the governor's budget director says.

The rest of the $500 million appropriation for DPI, the anchor of a statewide "innovation network," would then be allocated over several years, Hans Zigmund told legislators Tuesday at a hearing of the Senate Higher Education committee.

Lawmakers hungry for concrete details on the proposed DPI — and how it will use a half-billion dollars in state money — also asked the University of Illinois for monthly progress reports going forward...

[Sen. Scott Bennett, D-Champaign] raised concerns voiced by constituents in Champaign-Urbana and others about DPI becoming a "fourth campus" of the UI, as Rauner once said, that would drain resources from the three existing campuses. He also cited comments by Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who said at one point that the UI is bringing "computer science and engineering to the 78th."

"There's a lot of concern that we've taken our focus off of a campus that has served us for 150 years," Bennett said.

DPI's new interim director, Bill Sanders, head of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Urbana, promised that "the college of Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is not moving to Chicago," Sanders said. "And we're not creating a fourth campus. We're creating something very new."

The goal is to create a "collaboration place" bringing together people from all three campuses, along with entrepreneurs and industry to "allow things to happen that can't at any individual hub."

Full article with a lot of additional information and concerns here.


[Originally posted 8/29/2018 at 9:52am]