Infrastructure Improvement 1998 - 2001, $2.7 million

A three-year cooperative agreement (#9720643) with the National Science Foundation, which began in February of 1998, centered around NSF EPSCoR's emphasis on developing infrastructure rather than supporting specific research clusters as in the previous agreement. The statewide EPSCoR Committee selected three targeted areas for infrastructure development including:

1. computational support for engineers and scientists at UNL to support general campus connectivity to the emerging Internet 2 project, as well as enhancing the capacity for numerical analysis for computer scientists and engineers (group leaders were Kent Hendrickson, Sharad Seth and Dale Finkelson);
2. development of a complex systems simulations laboratory at UNO focusing on enhancing graphics and simulation research (group leader was John Flocken);
3. and developing infrastructure for peptide-based bioorganic chemistry at Creighton University focusing on analytical equipment (group leaders were Richard Murphy and J. Michael Conlon).

The UNL and UNO computational efforts were combined with the Great Plains Network project (also supported by NSF EPSCoR) to make these computer capabilities available to faculty on both campuses. The cooperative agreement also supported continuing efforts to increase research competitiveness through S&T planning, outreach and education, technology transfer, and faculty development.