Technology for the Future: Shimadzu & URI
One of the leading scientific instrument makers in the world, Shimadzu Corporation, will provide the University of Rhode Island’s new Center for Chemical and Forensic Sciences, currently under construction on the Kingston campus, with state-of-the-art instruments at a significant discount, including a full 5-year service plan, an in-kind donation valued at more than $1.2 million.
If the University were to purchase the instruments through normal educational purchase programs, the cost could run up to $2.8 million. The service plan covers technician visits once each semester to the teaching-learning labs and an additional visit each year to the research laboratories.
Based in Japan, Shimadzu Corp. posted $3 billion in consolidated net sales in 2013. Its contribution to URI will ensure that the University has cutting edge instruments and the ability to maintain even heavy demand instruments used by thousands of URI students who take chemistry each year.
To celebrate the partnership, University and Shimadzu officials came together for a signing ceremony on September 10, 2014.
“As many Rhode Islanders who supported this project knew, the Center for Chemical and Forensic Sciences is central to the University’s efforts to continually strengthen teaching and research and help build a strong economic future for the state based on discovery and innovation,” said President David M. Dooley. “When the new building opens, thanks to this generous donation from Shimadzu, our students and faculty will have access to the most advanced laboratory instruments and a program to keep all of them operational. We are fortunate to be able to partner with a company like Shimadzu, which is committed to the success of our University.”
“The University of Rhode Island has a dynamic science program focused on the future, and Shimadzu is pleased and eager to support such a research institution,” said Shuzo Maruyama, president of Shimadzu Scientific Instruments (the American subsidiary of Shimadzu Corp.). “We are delighted to have the opportunity to catalyze the potential of this great institution and look forward to working together in the future.”
Slated to be completed in the spring of 2016, URI’s $68 million Center for Chemical and Forensic Sciences will serve more than 7,000 URI students who take chemistry each year; about 40 percent of all URI degree programs require at least one chemistry class. It will provide chemistry instruction to approximately 1,400 students each day.
Among the instruments that will be found in the teaching and learning labs are: balances, mass spectrometers, gas chromatographs, spectrometers, and liquid chromatographs.
“I am very grateful to the Shimadzu Corporation for providing the students and faculty the instruments they need to engage in 21st century science,” said Winifred Brownell, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. “This center and all of the instruments contained in it will benefit all Rhode Islanders as it serves as a catalyst for economic development and discoveries that will improve peoples’ health and well-being within our state’s borders and around the world.”