(A) This chapter is known and may be cited as the "South Carolina Research Centers of Economic Excellence Act".
(B) The General Assembly finds that:
(1) it is in the public interest to create incentives for the senior research universities of South Carolina consisting of Clemson University, the Medical University of South Carolina, and the University of South Carolina to raise capital from the private sector to fund endowments for professorships in research areas targeted to create well-paying jobs and enhanced economic opportunities for the people of South Carolina;
(2) these endowed professorships should be used to recruit and maintain leading scientists and engineers at the senior research universities of South Carolina for the purposes of developing and leveraging the research capabilities of the universities for the creation of well-paying jobs and enhanced economic opportunities in knowledge-based industries for all South Carolinians;
(3) in communities across the United States in which better paying jobs and enhanced economic development in knowledge-based industries has flourished, the local or state government has created incentives and made a long-term commitment to public and private funding for a significant number of endowments for professorships in targeted knowledge-based industries;
(4) the South Carolina Education Lottery provides a source of funding and an incentive for the senior research universities to raise, in dollar-for-dollar matching amounts, sums from nonstate sources sufficient to create endowed professorships;
(5) these endowed professorships should be awarded to the senior research universities through a competitive application process, provided that the competitive process must encourage the senior research universities to submit cooperative applications with one another as well as in cooperation with other institutions of higher education; and
(6) these endowed professorships, funded equally from the South Carolina Education Lottery and from other nonstate sources, provide a foundation for the creation of centers of economic excellence.
HISTORY: 2002 Act No. 356, Section 3C; 2008 Act No. 355, Section 1, eff June 25, 2008.
Effect of Amendment
The 2008 amendment, in paragraphs (B)(4) and (B)(6), substituted "nonstate sources" for "private sources".