1. Paul Smaglik is editor of Naturejobs.

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One building helped put Wisconsin on the cultural map: the pavilion at Milwaukee Art Museum (pictured below), designed by internationally renowned Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava. It resembles either the sails of a ship, the fins of a fish or the wings of a seagull, depending on your point of view. Now the state governments of Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota hope that building up research and development infrastructure and funding can put them just as firmly on the scientific map.

The three upper-Midwest states are better known for agriculture and manufacturing than for science and technology. But their public research universities are among the biggest recipients of US federal research funding. In recent years, university and state officials have worked to raise their profiles, connect with the local business community and create three overlapping science hubs. Although the three states share the same goal, they have used different approaches to meet them — and the results so far are promising, but mixed.

In 2000, Michigan attempted to tap into a settlement from tobacco companies — designed to compensate states for the medical costs of tobacco-related illnesses — and invest $20 billion in biosciences infrastructure, industry and commercialization over 20 years (see Naturejobs 4–5; 21 November 2002). But state budget problems eroded that programme. Minnesota aimed to build a science park in 2004, but a year after the programme launched, the state legislature blocked the tax incentives that would draw companies in. Wisconsin, meanwhile, is planning to invest more than $1 billion in research and development, through a mix of philanthropy, university funds and state money. But it remains unclear whether it can line up all the pieces. Yet even without the complete success of these initiatives, which all focus on interdisciplinary and translational research, the three states' attempts to reach these lofty goals have helped position them to take on their more famous rivals on the east and west coasts.

Wisconsin is betting that putting together more than $1 billion in university, state and philanthropic funds will raise the profile of its two largest universities: the University of Wisconsin (UW), Milwaukee, and UW Madison. And plans for more interaction with multinational companies, as well as state biotech firms, could create jobs and help revitalize the local economy.

Mark Paller sees collaborations as the way forward for Minnesota's future success.

UW Madison, which led the nation in public-research funding last year with $780 million, is building two facilities that should make the campus even more competitive. The first, Health Star, combines pharmacology, nursing, veterinary medicine and researchers from its medical school and hospital, into a $300-million building. This will include facilities for non-human primate research, imaging and translational medical research. It will house many existing staff, allowing them to rub shoulders with colleagues from different disciplines, and will make room for new people, says Paul DeLuca, vice-dean of the medical school. "When you build a structure like that, clearly you're going to grow," he adds. The first phase of the three-part construction project is scheduled to open in 2008. The other two stages have yet to receive funding.

The other large building project, the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, also takes an interdisciplinary approach, but has engineering as its focus. It will bring together people from biomedical engineering, chemical engineering and health sciences in a $375-million building. The first construction phase will begin this year, and engineering dean Paul Peercy expects state funding for the next phase to be approved soon. It will house six teams initially, with plans for more once the second phase is completed. And in March, the university received the go-ahead for a $9-million bird-flu institute.

UW Milwaukee, long in the shadow of the Madison research giant, wants to assert itself. The arrival of high-profile administrators such as chancellor Carlos Santiago and vice-chancellor Abbas Ourmazd is helping. Last autumn, they approached the faculty members and proposed a $300-million, five-year research plan, with the price tag split between the university, the state and donors. The board of regents unanimously approved the plan, and within six weeks received 280 research proposals. If the money can be raised, about one in seven will be funded, giving researchers seed money to help provide preliminary data, which would make them more competitive for federal grants.

So far, the university has its own money in place and the donations are on schedule. But Abbas worries about the state money — the Milwaukee campus has traditionally been seen as a place for first-generation college-goers, in contrast with the research engine at Madison. Previous attempts to get more state support have been mixed (see 'Health issues', below). But Santiago and Ourmazd are making the case that more research investment in Milwaukee can help a city whose population and economy have been in a slow decline for more than 30 years.

Milwaukee is also trying to close the gap with Madison by helping large companies relocate or expand near the city. This month, the state announced a $12.5-million loan to drug firm Abbott Laboratories that would help it move into southeast Wisconsin — a loan that does not need to be repaid if the company brings in 2,400 employees within the next 10 years. Abbott has already bought 200 hectares in Kenosha County, south of Milwaukee, and the state loan would give it another 16 hectares, making a site big enough for 12,000 workers.

A Milwaukee suburb also hosts medical-imaging giant GE Healthcare, with 3,000 employees, about 1,000 of whom are engineers, with a quarter of those having PhDs. The company's purchase of UK diagnostics firm Amersham last year has brought a strength in reagents to add to its expertise in imaging equipment (see Nature 434, 252–253; 2005). As a result, the company is recruiting in microscopy and materials sciences, says its chief technology officer, Michael Barber.

But Madison industry is not standing still. Its University Research Park is filling up, and long-time tenants, such as university spin-offs Third Wave Technologies and Promega are growing. In a sign that the Madison bioscience community is maturing, PanVera, a small reagents company spun out by three UW Madison professors, was purchased by Vertex, which, in turn was bought by Invitrogen last year. The company anticipates adding 18–20 researcher positions within the next year.

Minnesota has had mixed success in building research infrastructure and attracting biobusinesses. In 2003, the state legislature approved $18.5 million to build biotech incubators and develop a science park on 200 hectares in Minneapolis and St Paul. But this year, a tax-relief plan that would entice companies to the land failed to pass, putting the project in jeopardy. "So, instead, we've been looking at other things," says Gene Goddard, a specialist in the biosciences industry at Minnesota's economic-development department. Those other things include $150 million for science labs for the state university system and a translational research centre at the University of Minnesota, which opened last year.

The cancellation of the science-park programme helped bring together two neighbours and sometime rivals, the University of Minneapolis and the renowned Mayo Clinic in Rochester. The Minnesota Partnership for Biotechnology and Medical Genomics — worth $70 million over five years, plus $22 million in infrastructure — combines the university's basic research with the clinic's medical-research acumen, and includes money for facilities the two can share.

Mark Paller, assistant vice-president of research at the university and leader of the partnership, says that some tantalizing results have already emerged. For instance, probes developed by scientists at the Mayo Clinic, combined with imaging equipment designed by scientists at the University of Minneapolis, show potential in the detection and diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease. "That's something neither of us could have done on our own," Paller says.

The future of research in Michigan is less certain. The Van Andel Research Institute in Grand Rapids need not worry about money, as it is funded by philanthropy, and the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, still a leader in National Institutes of Health funding, recently opened a translational research centre. But programmes designed to seed start-ups and foster technology transfer have been cut, along with individual grants to scientists. And although drug giant Pfizer is one of the state's largest industrial-scientific employers, the future of its Michigan site is uncertain, owing to mergers and acquisitions over the past few years.

The experiences of Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota as they build up science show that relying on just one source of funding is a risky proposition. All three are now rebalancing their portfolios, as well as encouraging more interactions between the public and private sectors — and even with former rivals. Such construction could become an even bigger draw to scientists than Calatrava's pavilion is to art and architecture aficionados.

Health Issues

Last year's decision to locate a new school of public health at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, highlighted the disproportionate funding for the state's two biggest public universities. After state governor Jim Doyle announced the new school, Milwaukee's mayor Tom Barrett wrote a letter of complaint to Paul DeLuca, dean of the university's medical school. In it, Barrett talked of a "unilateral" decision, because Milwaukee area legislators weren't consulted and Milwaukee was not considered as the potential site, despite its hospitals and location at the heart of the state's poverty-driven public-health problems.

DeLuca argues that the Madison campus (pictured) is best situated to run the school. It has already enrolled 40 students in its new public-health programme and has hired faculty members to run the school. Abbas Ourmazd, vice-chancellor of the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, acknowledges that Madison has more research infrastructure, but questions why the state can't share the wealth. "There's no question that Madison is a research powerhouse," Ourmazd says. "But is that it for the state?"

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