ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY (EPA) 

 PERSPECTIVE 



General Description of the Current Relationship: 



Current research relationships between EPA and the RIUs has the following principal features: 



• Competitive investigator initiated grants. 



• Competitive grants in response to requests for application in specified research areas. 



• Competitive and noncompetitive cooperative agreements with RIU investigators. 



• Research centers of various icinds. 



• Peer review and advisory functions. 



Public Benefits from Research-Intensive Universities/Federal Government Relationship: 



The public benefits from the RIU/EPA relationship are basically two. 



• Improved understanding of the current state of the environment, how it works, the deleterious effects from 

 its degradation, threats to it and ameliorative possibilities, enabling EPA to navigate between inadequate 

 protection and expensive overregulation. 



• The production of people trained in the environmental sciences needed by our society for environmental 

 management and research. 



EPA Expectations/Requirements for Relationships with Universities: 



EPA expects that all research it funds in RIUs meet the following: 



• Contribute to EPA's mission of environmental standard setting, regulation, and enforcement. 



• Be of high quality and published in the peer reviewed literature. 



• Be carried out in a cost effective manner and in accordance with applicable federal laws, rules, policies and 

 procedures. 



Issues with Current Relationships/Barriers to an Effective Relationship: 



Currently the major source of strain in the EPA/RIU relationship is the lack of funds for RIU research leading 



(i) to low probability of success in the competitive applications, and (ii) to EPA being a sporadic and unreliable 

 sponsor. 



Elements/Characteristics of a Productive Future Relationship: 



EPA needs to be a larger and more consistent sponsor. 



The RIUs need to develop ways of moving research, particularly engineering research, into practice. 



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