Cherokee Farm opens up the UT-Oak Ridge Partnership for private investors pursuing solutions to the world’s most significant problems.
Private partners will have access to five joint institutes between the University and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, unmatched neutron scattering capabilities, the world’s most powerful academic supercomputer, and a seed-to-market bioenergy program with DuPont Danisco, among other advantages.
UT-Oak Ridge Partnership
The complex problems of today’s world require collaboration across research disciplines.
The UT-Oak Ridge Partnership blossomed in 2000 when the University of Tennessee began co-managing Oak Ridge National Laboratory with Battelle Memorial Institute, a research and development organization out of Ohio. Since then, UT and ORNL have expanded research interactions and established five joint institutes.
The joint institutes create an environment of shared expertise and resources for staff scientists, faculty and graduate students. Jointly appointed faculty and scientists are funded through both UT and ORNL.
Joint institutes allow the UT-Oak Ridge Partnership to substantially engage more complex and significant problems through shared manpower and joint access to critical funding sources.
Five Joint Institutes
The Joint Institute for Advanced Materials (JIAM) will anchor Cherokee Farm and establish itself as one of the foremost research centers for materials science. JIAM also presents tremendous opportunity to work with the globally renowned, $1.4 billion Spallation Neutron Source and the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences at ORNL.
The Joint Institute for Computational Sciences became the National Institute for Computational Sciences (NICS) after the University of Tennessee won a $65 million grant from the National Science Foundation in 2008 to build and operate one of the world’s fastest supercomputers. The supercomputer, named “Kraken” after a mythical sea monster, is completely installed and in use. NICS is indicative of the UT-Oak Ridge Partnership’s joint potential for yielding results.
The Joint Institute for Biological Sciences (JIBS) is at the heart of two major investments at the state and federal level. Tennessee invested $70.5 million in the Tennessee Biofuels Initiative, a project that includes major investment from DuPont Danisco. The initiative includes bioenergy research, a seed-to-market pilot biorefinery in Vonore, Tenn., and farmer incentives to grow switchgrass. ORNL recently won a $125 million U.S. Department of Energy grant to house one of the nation’s three Bioenergy Science Centers for cellulosic ethanol research in the JIBS building.
The Joint Institute for Neutron Sciences (JINS) offers researchers access to the Spallation Neutron Source and High Flux Isotope Reactor at ORNL. These resources make East Tennessee a world leader in neutron sciences and can impact fields such as biomedical research, a focus at Cherokee Farm. The campus is located directly across Alcoa Highway from the UT Medical Center in Knoxville.
The Joint Institute for Heavy Ion Research (JIHIR) focuses on how new matter is created. Scientists hope to make inroads on safer nuclear power and new approaches to nuclear medicine by understanding the world’s most basic building blocks.
