Foundation under the microscope

Making great science into good business is vital to Long Island's future -- and the state's. That's a pivotal role of the Research Foundation of the State University of New York. The private, nonprofit corporation, set up to manage SUNY research money more flexibly than SUNY itself can, hasn't done well enough at promoting technology transfer from campus to industry. That must be fixed.

The big headlines have been about John O'Connor, the foundation's now-former president. The state Commission on Public Integrity questioned his hiring of Susan Bruno, daughter of former State Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, for a job it considered a no-show. O'Connor denied any wrongdoing, but he resigned in June.

Both State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli and Inspector General Ellen Biben are digging into that, and more. When they reach their findings, everything has to be on the table -- even the dissolution of the foundation, if that looks like the best way to enhance SUNY research.

Biben's office is looking not only at the Bruno allegations, but at any possible conflict of interest involving a private foundation that O'Connor ran while heading the Research Foundation. DiNapoli's office is also probing the close-to-the-vest Research Foundation.

Last week, DiNapoli criticized SUNY's hiring of a law firm to report on the foundation. He said the contract should have been bid competitively. SUNY said the report was a natural and permissible extension of the law firm's existing contract, which covered SUNY health science centers, the institutions most affected by the Research Foundation's management.

SUNY Chancellor Nancy Zimpher commissioned the report because she had concerns about the foundation's structure even before she arrived on the job in 2009. And the document itself, which DiNapoli praised, raises major questions.

One of its findings was that some SUNY campuses have declined in their research ranking, compared with similar institutions in other states. Though the foundation "performs no significant role" in setting research priorities or getting grant money, the report says, one of its key jobs is to help turn scientific discoveries into patents and royalty income from commercial products. The document says that, given the scope of its research, SUNY's performance in these areas is "extremely weak." Among other reasons, it blames the foundation's lack of a vision or strategy for technology transfer.

To get the state's and the Island's economy going, improving that performance must be central to any reforms the investigators propose. They can't be content just to parse O'Connor's behavior. They must figure out how the foundation, criticized in the report as far too secretive, can be restructured -- or whether it should be scrapped.

It would be tough for SUNY to give up on it, because the foundation handles a lot of jobs that bureaucratic hurdles prevent SUNY from doing as well -- jobs such as setting up joint ventures with private parties. And the foundation does serve to protect SUNY research money from any budget-balancing raids by legislators or the governor's office. The overarching goal, however, must be to improve the 64-campus university's research -- and the economic development it can generate. hN