Rice exits UH-led hurricane institute

University cites commitment to other projects related to Harvey as motivation for withdrawal

Rice University has backed out of a Gulf Coast hurricane research institute launched by the University of Houston to share expertise after Harvey battered Houston and the Texas coast.

Rice University has backed out of a Gulf Coast hurricane research institute launched by the University of Houston to share expertise after Harvey battered Houston and the Texas coast.

Rice’s withdrawal means that the private university’s decadeold storm center and its faculty will not be collaborating on projects financed and undertaken by the new center. Rice’s Severe Storm Prediction, Education and Evacuation from Disasters Center — itself a coalition of researchers from different schools — has worked with academics, emergency managers and public and private agencies since 2007.

“Since the announcement of the institute by UH, I’ve acquired five more Harvey-related projects through the Rice Houston Engagement and Recovery Effort and several other entities,” Philip Bedient, the SSPEED Center’s director, said in an email. “I don’t have the time and resources to commit to additional hurricane research efforts that UH is planning.”

The shake-up comes as universities across the region continue to invest in and share the results of large-scale research projects after hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria wrought billions of dollars in damage this year. Research efforts since the storms have focused on the environment, neighborhood recovery and chemical contaminants.

The other five universities — Texas Tech University, the University of Texas at Tyler, Louisiana State University, the University of Miami and the University of Florida — remain part of UH’s new institute, a University of Houston spokeswoman said. On Tuesday, Rice was still listed as a participating member on the institute’s website.

Amr Elnashai, UH’s vice president of research and technology, said in a text message that there was “no harm” in Rice’s decision to withdraw. He said he expected Rice to continue to work with UH researchers moving forward on other projects. He said he was unavailable to speak by phone Tuesday.

UH announced the new insti-

tute focused on flood mitigation, hurricane modeling and public policy earlier this month, involving several of the same players as SSPEED. Hanadi Rifai, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at UH, who also serves as SSPEED’s co-director, will direct UH’s institute. LSU is a member of both groups.

What distinguishes UH’s center from SSPEED to John Pardue, a professor of environmental engineering at LSU, was the broader focus on the Gulf Coast, not just Houston.

“We have to start drawing some more global lessons from these,” he said. “I still think that’s what can happen with this, even if Rice doesn’t participate.”

Collaboration between universities in research can be motivated by a need to reduce costs, work with experts in different fields or boost the clout of the work released.

Fear of collaboration?

Some higher education researchers, however, acknowledge that there can be fear in collaborating, particularly in the competitive field of academic research.

Universities should instead weigh how much impact a collaborative grant could have on the region and its needs as they evaluate whether to participate, said Noel Tomas Radomski, director of the Wisconsin Center for the Advancement of Postsecondary Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Amid an uncertain atmosphere for state and federal funding, campuses nationwide are striving to bulk up their research to earn grants and finance graduate programs, he said.

It may be advantageous for a university in Rice’s position to participate in both its existing center and a new startup, Radomski said.

“There’s a benefit: getting more research funding,” he said.

Though noteworthy for its wide Gulf Coast scope, UH’s center, called the Hurricane Resilience Research Institute, was far from the first big research push after Harvey.

The Houston Endowment and the Kinder Foundation, among other groups, sponsored one consortium that brought together Rice’s SSPEED Center and Kinder Institute, Texas Southern University’s public affairs school, UH’s architecture college and Texas A&M University, whose chancellor leads a state commission on Harvey.

Proposals due next year

Universities, too, have put forward individual projects. Rice spokesman B.J. Almond said the university has awarded $500,000 to hurricane research, including collaborations with other Houston colleges.

Research proposals for UH’s center are due next year. Faculty members from a participating institution can apply for hurricane-related research funding as long as the proposal involves collaboration with a different institution’s professor.

The seven universities said earlier this month that they would contribute a combined $1.87 million to finance collaborative projects. Elnashai estimated Tuesday that the institute had more than $1.5 million to launch and for projects.

Elnashai declined to comment on how much money Rice had committed to contributing, a figure that Bedient said he did not know.