Research Corporation

Research Corporation for Science Advancement (RCSA) is an organization in the United States devoted to the advancement of science, funding research projects in the physical sciences. Since 1912, Research Corporation for Science Advancement has identified trends in science and education, financing many scientific research projects.

The Research Corporation was founded in 1912 by Frederick Gardner Cottrell, scientist, inventor, environmentalist and philanthropist, with initial funding derived from the profits from his patents on the electrostatic precipitator. Research Corporation was the second foundation established in the United States (Andrew Carnegie established the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in 1906) and America's first foundation devoted solely to the advancement of science. For over 100 years, RCSA has catalyzed transformative research by funding top early-career teacher-scholars at America's colleges and universities.

RCSA seeks to identify and support ideas that could revolutionize and advance entire fields of study. At the same time, RCSA works to improve U.S. science education by advocating that faculty members enhance their teaching and contribution to society by remaining active in research and by involving undergraduates in their work. For many years the foundation has maintained that involving undergraduates in research develops critical thinking, creativity, problem solving, and intellectual independence, and promotes an innovation-oriented culture.

RCSA supports direct grants to academic scientists; conferences that leverage important scientific work that is already under way; advocacy with an emphasis on the research of early-career faculty; promulgating innovative ideas for scientific transformation; the integration of research and science teaching; interdisciplinary research; and building academic cultures that look toward tomorrow's scientific needs.

During the 1920s and 1930s, many scientists took out patents of their developments and assigned them to the Research Corporation in order to guarantee that any profits made from their work would be used for further scientific research (one notable example is Ernest O. Lawrence, who assigned his cyclotron patent to the company). The Research Corporation played a major role in the minds of many scientists of the period in formulating ideal policies about the role of intellectual property in science. It was one of the first foundations in the United States. In 1987, their invention-handing facilities became Research Corporation Technologies, a wholly independent company which handles technology transfer. It was also a major supporter of the research that led to the presentation of Interlingua in 1951.

Grants Programs: Cottrell Scholar Awards

The Cottrell Scholar Awards program (CSA) reinforces the growing awareness that teaching and research are complementary rather than wholly or partially exclusive. RCSA believes this convergence is essential for increasing the number of students who are attracted and retained in science.

Cottrell Scholar Awards are intended to:

• Create a culture shift in Ph.D.-granting institutions toward valuing the university scholar;
• Increase the attraction and retention of undergraduates in science;
• Increase the number of undergraduates from Ph.D.-granting institutions pursuing graduate degrees.

The program provides $100,000 over three years to early-career faculty in chemistry, physics, astronomy, biochemistry and biophysics at major research universities. Cottrell Scholars are chosen not only for their high-quality research, but also for their dedication to the task of teaching undergraduates. There are currently more than 240 Scholars nationwide.

Each award recipient is required to attend at least two annual conferences during the three-year term of the award. These conferences are focused on providing opportunities to share teaching knowledge as well as mentoring from previous award recipients and nationally recognized experts on such topics as navigating career paths, and balancing research and education in the research university environment. Numerous Cottrell Scholars have found the knowledge and recognition the program provides to be major motivating factors in their efforts to push through reforms in undergraduate science curricula at their universities.

In 2011 RCSA did not make any regular Cottrell Scholar Awards; instead, foundation personnel and various Cottrell Scholars focused on revamping and reorienting the program to increase its effectiveness in the coming decade. At the 2011 conference, a new synergistic organization, the Cottrell Scholar Collaborative, was launched. The Collaborative's central goal is to act collectively to change the way undergraduate science education is taught at major American universities.

Grants Programs: Cottrell College Science Awards

The Cottrell College Science Awards (CCSA) program, RCSA's oldest initiative, was created in the early 1970s to promote basic research as a vital component of undergraduate education at primarily undergraduate institutions (PUIs). CCSA has supported the research work of more than 1,300 PUI faculty in more than 400 institutions, and has generated research opportunities for thousands of undergraduates at both public and private institutions. One of RCSA's important goals is to motivate students to pursue careers in research and to become the advanced scientific workforce America will need to remain prosperous and safe in the challenging decades to come.

The awards are intended to: • Strengthen teacher-scholars while supporting high-quality research at primarily undergraduate institutions; • Help early-career PUI faculty become competitive for federal funding; • Encourage faculty to conduct meaningful collaborative work with undergraduate researchers, and; • Enhance the research culture of science departments at public and private institutions in the U.S.

The CCSA Single-Investigator Award provides research support for early-career faculty with interests in the fields of chemistry, physics and astronomy and in closely related fields that overlap significantly with these three disciplines. RCSA also has a new initiative under the CCSA banner, the Multi-Investigator Awards, to encourage early-career faculty to establish in-house, interdisciplinary research collaborations. This was done to encourage PUI-based researchers to address the increasingly complex problems inherent in modern scientific inquiry.

Grants Programs: Arizona Partners in Science Awards

Arizona Partners in Science, an RCSA program in conjunction with the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust, provides summer research opportunities for high-school science teachers under the supervision of faculty members at Arizona universities.

The objective of this program is to provide Arizona high-school science teachers the opportunity to work on summer research projects in collaboration with individual science faculty at universities within the state. The main goals are to help improve grade 9-12 science education and increase the number of students who choose to pursue science careers.

Strategic Partnerships

Research Corporation for Science Advancement works with corporations, fellow foundations, and government offices and agencies, as well as educational institutions, across the country.

In order to increase the breadth of its influence, in 2010 Research Corporation established a Strategic Partnerships program charged with increasing its endowment and establishing collaborations with corporations, fellow foundations, government offices and agencies.

Presidents

Years	Name	Previous roles	Education	Notes	Ref
1912-1915	Board of directors	-	-	-
1915-1922	Elon Huntington Hooker	Founder of Hooker Electrochemical Company	University of Rochester bachelor's, Cornell University PhD	Chemist, hydrodynamic engineer
1922-1927	Arthur A. Hamerschlag	Engineer for the US Government in Cuba and Mexico (1888-1892), President of Carnegie Institute of Technology (1903-1921)
1927-1945	Howard Andrews Poillon	Mucker in Alaskan gold mines (1900-1910), Manager of Vanadium Mines (1910-?), Director of RCSA (1920-1927)	Spent one year at Columbia University School of Mines	Formed an engineering consulting firm for mining
1946-1957	Joseph Warren Barker	US Army Officer (?-1925), Professor of Electrical Engineering at MIT, Dean of Engineering Faculty at Columbia University (?-?), Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Navy (World War II)	MIT graduate (1916)	Navy Distinguished Civilian Service Award recipient
1957-1967	J. William Hinkley	Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp. (1927-1943), Staff at MIT's Radiation Laboratory (1943-1944), Manager of RCSA's Research Construction Company (1945-1946), Director of RCSA's Patent Management Division (1946-1957)		Died during his tenureship
1968-1982	James Stacy Coles	Chemistry Professor at City College of New York and Middlebury College (?-?), Research Supervisor at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (World War II), Acting Dean and Chemistry Professor at Brown University (?-?), President of Bowdoin College (?-1967)	Degrees from Mansfield State Teachers College and Columbia University	Retired in 1982 but remained Chairman of the RCSA's executive committee until 1984
1982-2002	John P. Schaefer	Assistant Professor of Chemistry at University of California, Berkeley (?-1960); Chemistry Department Head and Dean of the College of Liberal Arts (?-1971), and President of University of Arizona (1971-1982)	Helped found the Center for Creative Photography	Polytechnic Institute bachelor's in chemistry, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign PhD in chemistry, California Institute of Technology postdoc
2002	Michael P. Doyle	Taught at University of Arizona, Nankai University, Hope College, and Trinity University; Chemistry and Biochemistry Department Chair at University of Maryland (2003-?); Medicinal Chemistry Department Chair at University of Texas at San Antonio (?-present)	Attended University of St. Thomas and Iowa State University; University of Illinois, Chicago postdoc
2002-2005	John P. Schaefer	-	-	Resumed presidency
2005-2013	James M. Gentile	Dean for the Natural Sciences and Endowed Chair in Biology at Hope College	Saint Mary's University of Minnesota bachelor's and Illinois State University Master's and PhD, Yale School of Medicine postdoc	Received the Alexander Hollaender Research Excellence Award from the EMGS and the Cancer Research Medallion from the National Cancer Institute of Japan; AAAS Fellow
2014-2017	Robert N. Shelton	President of Giant Magellan Telescope Organization (?-?), President of University of Arizona (2006-2011), Executive Director of the Arizona Sports Foundation (2011-2014)		Novel materials physicist
2017	Daniel Gasch			Interim president
2017-present	Daniel I. Linzer	Assistant Professor (1984-?), Associate Dean (1998-2002), Dean (2002-2007), Provost (2007-2017), and Professor of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Cell Biology (?-present) at Northwestern University	Yale University bachelor's in molecular biophysics and biochemistry (1976), Princeton University PhD in biochemical science (1980), NIH postdoc at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine

Nobel Laureates

Research Corporation for Science Advancement has funded the early work of at least 40 scientists who have received Nobel Prizes.

Year	Name	Category	RCSA grant(s)	Research topic	Ref
1934	Harold C. Urey	Chemistry	1938	Isotopes
1939	Ernest O. Lawrence	Physics	1931 (renewed 1934, 1935, 1937, 1938), 1939 (renewed 1940, 1941, 1942)	Cyclotron (1931), nuclear physics (1939)
1944	Isidor Isaac Rabi		1931, 1937 (renewed 1938, 1939, 1940)	Molecular beam research (1931), magnetic moment of the atom (1937)
1946	Percy W. Bridgman		1954	Properties of matter under pressure with a particular reference to the properties of alloys
1950	Edward C. Kendall	Physiology or Medicine	1942 (1943, 1944)	Cortical hormones
1952	Felix Bloch	Physics	1939, 1946 (renewed 1947, 1948)	Low voltage generator (1939), nuclear induction and its application to polarized neutrons (1946)
	Edward M. Purcell		1946, 1948	Resonance absorption by nuclear magnetic moments
1958	George Beadle	Physiology or Medicine	1944	Induction and detection of biochemical mutations in Neurospora crassa
	Edward L. Tatum		1946, 1947, 1971, 1974	Use of isotopes in the study of biosynthesis of amino acids (1946, 1947), characterization of enzymes of morphological mutants of Neurospora (1971, 1974)
1959	Severo Ochoa		1941, 1944, 1951	Intermediary carbohydrate metabolism (1941), respiratory enzymes and the mechanism of the biological oxidation of pyruvic acid (1944), enzyme systems involved in biological oxidations and syntheses (1971)
1961	Robert Hofstadter	Physics	1950	Nuclear electric charge distribution by experiments on the elastic scattering of electrons from nuclei
1964	Feodor Lynen	Physiology or Medicine	1954	Biosynthesis of the fatty acids and isoprene derivatives
1965	Robert B. Woodward	Chemistry	1949 (renewed 1950, 1951, 1952, 1953), 1957	Synthesis of cortisone (1949), structure and synthesis of chlorophyll (1957)
1967	Manfred Eigen		1954	Velocity and mechanism of high speed ionic reactions
1968	Robert W. Holley	Physiology or Medicine	1958	Chemistry of intermediates in protein synthesis
1969	Max Delbrück		1958	Production, characterization and mapping of the phage T2L
1973	Ernst Otto Fischer	Chemistry	1961	Extension of metal microanalysis
1976	William N. Lipscomb Jr.		1959	Determination of the molecular structure of an enzyme, a proteinase from Tetrahymena pyriformis W, by x-ray diffraction methods
1979	Herbert C. Brown		1948, 1949	Effects of structure on the chemistry of addition compounds
	George Wald	Physiology or Medicine	1942 (renewed 1943), 1949	Physiological action of thiamin in neuromuscular systems (1942), cozymase-destroying systems in the tissues of freshwater fishes or the conversion of β-Carotene to vitamin A in vitro (1949)
	Georg Wittig	Chemistry	1955	Organic anion chemistry
1986	Dudley Herschbach		1998	Mechanical means to decelerate gaseous molecules
1987	Donald J. Cram		1951	Macro-ring compounds containing aromatic nuclei as part of the ring systems
1989	Thomas R. Cech		1977, 1978	Photochemical crosslinking of DNA with psoralens
1990	Elias J. Corey		1958, 1959	Synthesis of electronically unstable organic structures protected by large substituents
1992	Rudolph A. Marcus		1954, 1956	Behavior of the dicarboxylate ions
	Edwin G. Krebs	Physiology or Medicine	1958, 1959	Immunochemical studies on glycolytic enzymes
1993	Joseph H. Taylor Jr.	Physics	1970	Temporal variation of pulsars
1995	Frederick Reines		1959 (unrestricted), 1961	Neurons and gamma-rays of extraterrestrial origin
1996	Robert C. Richardson		1972, 1973	Possible superfluid properties of liquid 3He
	Robert F. Curl Jr.	Chemistry	1958	Microwave spectra of radicals and molecules
	Richard E. Smalley		1976, 1977	Supersonic molecular beam laser spectroscopy of photoactive molecules
1999	Ahmed H. Zewail		1976	Energy transport in high-dimensional solids
2000	Alan G. MacDiarmid		1956, 1957, 1959	Silico-ethyl (SiH3SiH2) compounds
2001	Carl E. Wieman	Physics	1981	Precision test of the Weinberg-Salam theory of weak and electromagnetic interactions.

External links

• Research Corporation website

Archival collections

• Research Corporation maser and laser patents collection, 1956-1962, Niels Bohr Library & Archives