The Alternative Path

    The alternative to a Rice-BCM merger is to continue on a path that has allowed us to steadily advance the quality and impact of our research enterprises, while maintaining our core commitment to unequaled undergraduate education.

    For example, several well-timed strategic investments over the past 20 years transformed Rice’s computer science and bioengineering from “isolated clusters of excellence” to thriving departments with top 20 and top 10 national rankings.

    Another series of strategic investments in the area of nanotechnology benefited and stimulated the growth of several interdisciplinary research groups that span many Rice departments: chemistry, chemical and biomolecular engineering, electrical and computer engineering, physics, bioengineering, mechanical engineering and materials science, civil and environmental engineering. As a result, Rice is consistently ranked in the top 5 worldwide in nanotechnology and is the top university worldwide in carbon nanotube research.

    Several other Rice schools and departments are also on a steep upward path.  For example, the 113 tenured, tenure-track and research faculty of the Rice School of Engineering had almost $40M in research expenditures in 2009. This level of expenditures represents an increase of more than 40% since 2005 with virtually no increase in either faculty size or lab space.

Research Portfolio Metrics

    The size of research portfolios of various institutions should not be considered independently of their size, faculty productivity and success in establishing strong inter-institutional collaborations.

    Caltech has about the same number of faculty in science and engineering as Rice, a smaller overall footprint and no medical school in the immediate vicinity of its campus. And yet, it received 4 times as much new research funding from NIH in 2008. MIT equaled BCM in new NIH awards for 2008 without having its own medical school, a success that is undoubtedly linked to its ability to form joint educational and research programs with Harvard Medical School and other Boston area hospitals and research centers.

    These metrics should be kept in mind when trying to estimate the cost needed to increase Rice’s research output or when assessing the true value and cost to Rice of BCM’s research output.

Financial Risks Are Amplified by the Large Size Difference Between Rice and BCM

As pointed out in the FMRC report, a Rice-BCM merger would create one of the most unbalanced academic institutions in the US, with a very small university attached to a large medical school. This imbalance could impact Rice’s academic mission, culture, and finances.

In a combined BCM-Rice institution, 89% of its total 2006 research expenditures would have come from the life and medical sciences. Stanford (the example mentioned on page 10 of the OMD) is a more balanced university with 58% of its 2006 research expenditures coming from the life and medical sciences.  The corresponding figures for Harvard and Columbia are 70% and 69% respectively.

    The financial risks to Rice of merging with BCM are significant and are amplified by the large size differential between the two institutions.  The annual operating budget at BCM, for example, is almost three times the size of Rice's budget.  Consequently, small fractional changes in total revenue of the combined institution could have a large impact on funds available for Rice’s traditional mission.

A Final Remark

If Rice wants to merge with BCM in order to increase its NIH funding and raise its research profile in the biomedical areas, there is another way, less risky and more effective in the long run. The recent growth of several Rice schools and programs, Caltech (with its small size and high standards) and MIT (with its aggressive approach to interdisciplinary research in the life sciences through HST and other programs) show how such a goal can be achieved.