Public-Private Research Facility Planned
A public-private partnership has come together to help create a $150 million research facility on the University of Wisconsin campus in Madison.
The Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery will consist of two entities that will work collaboratively. The Wisconsin Institute for Discovery will be part of the university and its graduate school. The Morgridge Institute for Research will be privately operated and will provide space for industry interactions, including technology transfer and privately funded research. It will interact with and complement the public institute.
The objectives of the institutes, the university says, are to foster new approaches for integrating biotechnology, nanotechnology and information technologies; to establish educational components that will integrate cross-disciplinary science into K-12, undergraduate and graduate education; and to facilitate inventions that can be transferred to the marketplace to create jobs.
Funding for the institutes comes from the state of Wisconsin ($50 million), the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation ($50 million) and private donors John and Tashia Morgridge ($50 million). John Morgridge is the former chairman of Cisco Systems.